THE man who headed up Bobby Sands' publicity during the IRA hunger-striker’s historic by-election win in April 1981 in Fermanagh and South Tyrone (FST) has said that the pivotal constituency can no longer be deemed a marginal after Pat Cullen’s emphatic win in the early hours of Friday morning.
And in a sign of the rapidly changing times, Danny Morrison described the former unionist safe seat of East Derry as "the new Fermanagh and South Tyrone now".
On a night of high political drama, the Sinn Féin woman retained FST for the party with over 4,500 votes to spare – a far cry from four-and-a-half years ago when Michelle Gildernew won the seat by a mere 57 votes. Traditionally the most marginal seat in the North, with Cullen's stunning win the focus turned instead to East Derry, where Sinn Féin missed out on taking the former unionist bastion from the DUP's Gregory Campbell, falling short by just 179 votes.
Reflecting on the competing political fortunes of Fermanagh and South Tyrone candidates over the years and the constituency's significance to the wider political picture, Danny Morrison said that when he and his team first arrived there from Belfast in 1981 they thought they were “city slickers who were going to show the locals what to do".
“But what we quickly discovered was that the people had been there for decades ensuring that the electoral rolls were up-to-date, as if waiting for this very day," he said.
HISTORIC: Danny Morrison at the Andersonstown News office this week – he says Fermanagh and South Tyrone has changed forever
The by-election was called just days into Bobby Sands’ hunger-strike, after the death of Frank Maguire, who had been an independent republican MP. The constituency had a history going back decades of electing independents and along with its neighbouring constituency of Mid-Ulster had also elected republican prisoners in the 1950s. Bobby would run on an Anti-H-Block/Armagh ticket against former Ulster Unionist leader Harry West.
“And of course neighbouring Mid-Ulster had also elected Bernadette Devlin in 1969,” Danny added. “So the area had a history of not being under the control or influence of the SDLP.
“So we went down and we discovered that the locals were teaching us and it was a great lesson in humility.
“We canvassed from sunrise to sunset and beyond. We canvassed all areas and were continually stopped by the RUC, UDR and the British Army. They would stop us going into a village and take everything out of the car and then when we were going out of the village after doing our canvass the same thing would happen again.”
Danny said that in the wake of Bloody Sunday in January 1972, attendances at political rallies had dropped off because people were terrified of the same thing happening again. However, he noticed that during the first hunger-strike in 1980 he was seeing people attending marches who he hadn’t seen in years.
“It was quite clear that the nationalist community was outraged at the treatment of these young people (in prison),” he said.
Bobby Sands defeated Harry West in a bitterly-fought contest by 30,493 votes to 29,046, taking the Fermanagh and South Tyrone seat to the delight of all shades of nationalism.
“With Bobby's election victory, our hopes were raised, the family’s hopes were raised and the community’s hopes were raised. I came home with Mr and Mrs Sands and Marcella in their car and came back to the office and started doing television and radio in Belfast that night, so you couldn’t blame people for hoping.
“It was an unbelievable feeling – that he’d done it!”
In the wake of Bobby Sands' election win, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher rushed through emergency legislation to amend the Representation of the People Act, preventing prisoners from running for Parliament again. This had the unintended consequence of hastening Sinn Féin's entry into the political sphere. With prisoners now unable to stand for election, Bobby Sands' election agent Owen Carron went on the ballot paper after Bobby's death on hunger strike the following month and subsequently won in another almighty election tussle in Fermanagh and South Tyrone that August.
Subsequent election victories that summer for hunger-striker Kieran Doherty and blanketman Paddy Agnew in the general election in the Republic added to the growing debate within Sinn Féin on whether to enter electoral contests in the future. Later that year Danny made his famous “Armalite and ballot box” speech at the 1981 Ard Fheis.
In 1982 he would be one of five Sinn Féin candidates elected to the 'Prior Assembly' of that year for the Mid-Ulster constituency. In the next year's general election he lost to the DUP’s Willie McCrea by just 78 votes.
Danny reflected on the pivotal role that Fermanagh and South Tyrone has played throughout the years in Irish elections, but also in the growth of Sinn Féin as a political force.
“Fermanagh and South Tyrone for me is so symbolic," he says. "It’s a source of immense pride and emotion.”
And returning to last week’s result, he says the iconic constituency can no longer be referred to as a marginal seat.
“It’s gone,” he says, “It’s gone like so many others in the past. East Derry is the new Fermanagh and South Tyrone now.”
