World of Politics with Harry McGee

How left is Galway West? Certainly the last two presidents have been politicians of the left who were TDs in this constituency -strongly to the left in Catherine Connolly’s case, and arguably so too for Michael D Higgins, even if he tempered it when part of the collective in Government, and as President.

When she was elected, President Connolly said she had provided the catalyst for a new movement of the left. The first test of that could be the two bye-elections that take place in the spring of next year – for her seat in Galway and for Paschal Donohoe’s after his unexpected departure for the World Bank.

Are bye-elections a weathervane? Not really, unless they take place just before a general election.

The most significant one I can recall in that regard is the one that took place in the winter of 2010. Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher had been elected to the European parliament in 2009 but the then Fianna Fáil-Green government had refused to allow a bye-election take place for his vacated Dáil seat.

Sinn Féin candidate Pearse Doherty, then a senator, took a High Court case to force the then-government, led by Brian Cowen, to hold the byelection.

Of course, the reason the government didn’t hold it was they knew they would lose it and didn’t want to give the opposition a fillip. Problem was the longer they left it, the worse it looked.

By the summer of 2010, the narrative was that the government was deliberately holding out, which was true of course. Doherty took a High Court case and won, forcing the government to call the election. Indeed, they had to change the rules and commit to hold all future byelections within six months.

Of course, when the byelection was finally held, Doherty won it by a landslide and launched what has become a distinguished career in the Dáil.

I have always believed that it was victory – and his energy – that proved the springboard for Sinn Féin’s big electoral gains only two months later.

Elsewhere, by-elections are not really a guide to anything, except that they are usually used to give the government of the day a bit of a kicking.

There have been 138 bye-elections since the foundation of the State and for the first five decades most of them went along party lines, shared between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

But then things started to change.

Pictured: President Catherine Connolly at her inauguration – who will take her seat?