Galway’s eight sitting TDs are almost certainly breathing a large sigh of relief following this week’s constituency boundary changes.

But with an additional seat in Galway East, there was also good news for Sinn Féin which is now poised to make a significant gain next time out.

However, there remains huge disappointment in the Galway East constituency that Ballinasloe still remains ‘out in the cold’ as part of the greater Roscommon constituency.

That said, for the five sitting TDs in Galway West and the three in Galway East, the boundary changes do not present any major additional concerns as to their prospects of being returned to the next Dáil.

The only big change in Galway West is that the county boundary has been restored – meaning that the 3,000 plus votes that came in from South Mayo last time out have been returned to their natural home.

The decision to leave untouched the greater Oranmore and Claregalway areas will come as a great relief to Deputy Noel Grealish (Ind) who had feared that some of his stomping ground might have been annexed into Galway East.

That constituency has been enlarged to accommodate a fourth seat by taking back part of the territory in the north of the county that had previously been in Roscommon/Galway.

It means that an area stretching from Dunmore across to Glenamaddy, Mountbellew, Castleblakeney and Kilconnell will now rejoin Galway East.

But voters in Ballinasloe – and in areas around Creggs and Glinsk – will be livid that they remain part of the largely Roscommon constituency as they had hoped that the county boundary would have been maintained in this current carve-up.

Read full analysis in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.