Hyland rallying back from election blow

Unseated Mayo election candidate Christy Hyland said he has made peace with his heartbreaking defeat and is not ruling out a return to politics.

There were just 50 votes in it for the final seat in Westport Electoral Area with Brendan Mulroy (Fianna Fáil) seeing off the challenge of Hyland. John O’Malley was only five votes ahead of Mulroy to capture third spot in the four-seater.

The departure of Hyland was one of the few shocks in this year’s local elections. Independent councillor Christy, who always wore his heart on his sleeve during council exchanges, admitted he shed some tears after his disappointing loss.

“I was bad on Sunday night and didn’t sleep a wink,” he told the Western People. “I shed a few tears."

However, his family rallied around him and Hyland is now more sanguine about how the election played out for him.

“The family were around me. We got together and spoke really positively. At the end of the day, nobody has died, nobody is sick. My son gave me a great response. He told me: 'Dad, you’re 15 years driving the town council and serving the county, it’s like your redundancy!'"

Christy believes some of his constituents may have felt his seat was safe and dished ‘Number One’ votes out elsewhere.

“People have told me they were shocked as I was such a visible councillor. I think having a bit of a ‘favourite’ tag killed me,” he said.

“I think people went into the polling stations and thought, 'Well Christy has enough votes',” he added.

He said his personal performance and those of the other sitting candidates in the Murrisk area took him aback.

“Murrisk was a tough one to take. That’s where the water project is that I started kicking up about over six years ago. The machines are on the ground now there but the four of us got savaged there. The four of us got hammered there at the butt of the Reek. 

“Maxwell took us out in Murrisk,” he commented, referring to Independent Ireland candidate Chris Maxwell who topped the poll. 

Christy is refusing to rule out another election tilt.

“I’m not writing it off. I’m a determined fella. I played a lot of football in my time and was always a bit of an auld terrier. I’ll talk to the people out there and see.”