Political rivalry, by its very nature, has always been a fertile field for the development of the darker arts of propaganda, and it appears that Galway West, facing into its first by-election in over fifty years, is ripe for it in this digital age.
In 2024, a manipulated image of Fianna Fáil general election candidate Gráinne Seoige was circulated. Whatever about her politics, this was done because she is a woman.
Also in 2024, Helen Ogbu stood for election for Labour, and was elected to the Galway city council. Almost immediately, she faced and still faces thousands of derogatory, racist and plainly false slurs spread online. Whatever about her politics, this was done because she is black.
Now in 2026, city councillor Mike Cubbard announced his intention to run for the seat vacated by independent TD Catherine Connolly. His family’s home has been used as a political football, in AI-generated cartoons. Whatever about his politics, this was because he lives in social housing.
Woman. Coloured. Poor. These are the main themes used in the political manipulation of the wonders of modern digital media in 21st century Galway.
Each of these individuals above has had to explain to their families what is happening. Seoige describing false nude pics to her elderly father; Ogbu, racial prejudice to her daughter reared in Galway; Cubbard, snobbery to his teenage son, proud of his father the mayor.
So what? They all put their names out there, and they deserve everything they get. Sure aren’t they all the same…?
Except they are not.
These are the people brave enough to stand at the front of the room, when our natural inclination is to sit at the back, where the múinteoir won’t spot us, not listening to the important, boring stuff. The stuff that matters. The stuff about which ‘something must be done’ but we do not want to think about what to do, never mind how, or that it is probably very complex, and difficult, and deep down we’d prefer someone else to sort it out.
Whatever about their politics, these candidates had the bravery, gumption, brass neck, foolishness, hubris, empathy and vocation to expose themselves to criticism and ridicule for their ideas, policies, opinions, and solutions, or lack thereof.
Their sex, skin or social status should not really come in to the picture. But they do, because we are all flawed humans; swift to judge on appearance, rather than substance.
Yet fake nudey pics, fake media interviews, fake text messages, misinformation, disinformation, and a blurring of what is real, versus what is not, is a new development when we carry the means to make and spread this material, convincingly, in our pockets. In the past, propaganda needed movie studios or printing presses, and a lot of people to make it happen.
Now just one person, perhaps disgruntled about an expenses scandal a decade ago, or missing an opportunity to run in an election, or stumbling upon confidential correspondence in their day job, or choosing to blame people who do not look like them for their own problems, can use their mobile phone to create imagined outcomes, which may go viral. Technology companies feed on this, and the oligarchs who own them become richer than imperial powers of the past.
These social media-traded memes are rarely targeted against large property owners, stingy employers, or sectarian demagogues, they usually punch down, against the people often least organised to fight back: women, children, refugees, the impoverished, the marginalised, the homeless, the migrant and the disabled.
Sometimes they do fight back, and stick their heads above the parapet in a republican democracy those before us sacrificed, fought, bled and died at Easter to hand to us. They run for office. Sometimes they win. More often they do not. But in the running, there is nobility.
So why not ridicule, criticise, satirise, and hold in contempt what these candidates do and say? Not how they were born, and the patronising challenges that persist from that, manipulated into a deep-fake meme, AI-generated cartoon, or swiftly spread prejudice, because Grok or Claude or Gemini or ChatGPT say we can. We’re better than that.
Polling day looks like it will be the fourth Friday of next month, May 22.
We could elect someone because they have the best ideas how to allocate resources in our society, and give them a seat in our Oireachtas – which makes them accountable. Or we could choose based on juvenile jokes, prurient inquiries into private lives, and manipulated, malicious content, sent from phone to phone, made from 1s and 0s, created by and paid for by people unknown, who might never be called to account for the consequences of their actions.
The device in our hand, grants us that privilege, but what is in our head, gives us the decision. Perhaps use one, to feed the other, well. [email protected]
