In the days following the 2024 general election Seán Kyne announced he was quitting politics after failing to take a Dáil seat for the second general election in a row.He had previously served as a Fine Gael TD between 2011 and 2020 and asked about his decision to leave politics, he told Galway Bay FM “I’ve been retired by the electorate”.As it happens, Kyne reversed his decision to leave politics within weeks and he later successfully contested the 2025 Seanad election, taking a seat on the cultural and educational panel.He explained the change of heart saying he had received calls from constituents in Galway West and Fine Gael colleagues in the parliamentary party to stay in politics.Kyne also said at the time: “Also, there is now no TD of any party resident in Connemara so I feel there is a role to be played.”Now the Moycullen-based Irish speaker is headed back to the Dáil after his victory in the Galway West byelectionKyne, who celebrated his 51st birthday during the byelection campaign, has been in politics for more than 20 years.The biography on his campaign website describes how his childhood was “shaped by the outdoors” and how “farming is in my blood and something I love”.He studied agricultural science and worked as an agri-environmental consultant in his 20s. Kyne describes himself as “not a natural politician as I have never liked being in the spotlight” but when he was asked to stand for election in 2004 he “could not say no”.He was a Fine Gael councillor on Galway County Council between 2004 and 2011 before being elected to the Dáil in 2011.Seán Kyne celebrates with Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris and supporters after winning the Galway West byelection. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire Kyne was re-elected as a TD in 2016 and later served as minister of State for the Gaeltacht and government chief whip under then taoiseach Leo Varadkar. He lost his Dáil seat in the 2020 general election but became a Senator the same year.During the by-election campaign, Kyne told The Irish Times: “I believe I have a track record in delivery across the constituency,” and he pointed to the Moycullen bypass and buying Connemara airport for the State.He also addressed a question about a hearing of the Workplace Relations Commission earlier this year where a former chief executive of Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), Francis O’Donnell, said he made a statement to gardaí alleging he was being “blackmailed” by a senator to reinstate a suspended member of staff. It came during a bitter dispute during which Kyne was a vocal critic of governance at the body.Asked if O’Donnell was referring to him, Kyne said “some people have taken it like that”. He said he had not been contacted by the WRC on this issue, nor by the Garda on any such allegations.He says he stands over all his actions, pronouncements and statements, saying all were made in public. “My only engagement with the former CEO was at the [Oireachtas] committee or at official meetings ... There has been a big story down through the years in relation to governance, accountability and the job [the IFI] was doing. The real issue is the protection of the waters and the lakes.”[ Winners and losers: What we’ve learned from the byelectionsOpens in new window ]