FORMER Sinn Féin MLA Fra McCann has paid tribute to those who have helped him get elected over the years after he stood down from the Assembly earlier this month bringing to an end, 34 years as an elected representative.
 
“1985 was the first time I stood and I didn’t get elected,” he said. “At that time I would have been heavily involved in the campaign around the demolition of Divis Flats. I was the secretary of the Divis Residents' Association and in terms of community activism it was a very exciting time.
 
“When the election in 1985 came round the party said it was about time that I allowed my name to go forward and I agreed. Republicans hadn’t really been standing in elections before that and in 1981 we had boycotted the elections.
 
“People were getting elected on 900 or 950 votes. I got 1,499 votes and didn’t get elected. It was difficult to take.
 
“In 1987 Máirtín Ó Muilleoir and myself ran in a byelection created when Will and Pip Glendinning from the Alliance Party resigned. We were both elected and that started my political career in terms of elected politics.”
 
Fra described his first term as a councillor as “an experience”.
 
“I knew Alex [Maskey], Sean McKnight, Sean Keenan, Bobby Laverty, Lilly Fitzsimons and Tish Holland who were already there. I knew that it was tough, it was rough and it was a cold house for nationalists.
 
“You knew what you had to defend and the first day I went in I was walking through the entrance hall when a member of staff shook a collection tin in my face. I said no and she called me a Fenian bastard. That was my first day but City Hall was a battle a day. You knew you had to break the system that was in operation.”
 
Fra recalled how unionist politicians tried to stop him being appointed to committees on the council but he ended up being appointed to the Leisure Services committee and the Parks committee.

“There were huge protests and they would try to lock us out of the rooms when we were going to committee meetings. At the last minute they would change the room. We ended up having to put someone in each of the committee rooms so we couldn’t be locked out.
 
“There was a lot of arguing and a lot of bitterness which went on for a considerable period of time.
 
“There was a time when a group of women came in to protest and hung a banner over the balcony in City Hall. I still have visions of unionist politicians jumping up and down to try and remove it.
 
“They would have sprayed air freshener around you or shouted insults. The likes of Alex Maskey who had been shot, they would call him lead belly and they would shout abuse at me about my brother who had been shot dead in 1984.”
 
Recounting life in the chamber, Fra discussed a tactic by unionist politicians who would protest when Sinn Féin councillors stood to speak by gathering at the mayors chair and hurl abuse at Sinn Féin representatives.
 
“One council night they gathered and we had decided that we would go among them. They were screaming abuse and it erupted. There was a physical fight at the bottom of the chamber and when it finished we were charged with assault. We counter charged them and the charges were dropped.
 
“City Hall is completely different now but that took court cases to achieve. The big breakthrough came when D’Hont was brought in. Sinn Féin had been campaigning for this and then the other parties joined in.
 
“Because of that we now have committee positions and mayoral positions awarded on the strength of the parties.
 
“One of the things I learned in City Hall was to remember who I was there to represent. Firstly it was to the community that elected me and secondly it was to represent republicanism.
 
“We all voted together and one day myself and Tom Hartley were walking round when the then Chief Executive caught up with us and told us that we didn’t realise how respected we were by staff. He said we never vote out of line and that we were always courteous when dealing with staff.”
 
At that time, Fra said that you always had to be aware of your personal safety.
 
“The RUC would come to your door and tell us that our lives were in imminent danger” he continued. “I was told that my life was under threat going to and coming from City Hall. I didn’t drive at the time and there is only so many ways you can walk to City Hall.
 
“It was difficult for people to even look at electoral politics as a career with the risks it imposed. You were always worried about something happening to your family but I don’t bow easy to intimidation.
 
“I do remember going into City Hall and there was a bomb left on the window of our party room. God have mercy on Marie Moore and Paddy McManus, both of whom are dead now, they had just left the room before the bomb went off. Even though it had bullet proof windows there was still splinters and anyone who would have been in the room at the time would have been killed.”
 
For Fra, political life is about more than division and in his words, he tried to reach out in order to bring about progress.
 
“You are not in there to make enemies – you are there to make friends. I would have done side deals and I remember being away with a Leisure Services subcommittee which had been set up to oversee the closure of leisure centres in West Belfast.
 
“They were saying that there was too many leisure centres in West Belfast but it was a constant battle. We were in a hotel in Newcastle and  they were trying to close Falls Leisure Centre.
 
“They had closed it and a local woman took a court case which forced them to open it again. I went to the toilet and a unionist came in. He asked why I wouldn’t let Falls Leisure Centre close. I proposed that we would agree to rebuild Grove Leisure Centre if they agreed to rebuild Falls.
 
“No one else knew about this deal but we went back into the meeting. He proposed that Council rebuilt Falls and Grove which I seconded.”
 
Fra first stood for the Assembly in 2003 and was subsequently elected.
 
“I don’t know how many election campaigns I have fought but there I was always a nervous wreck," he said. “2016 was probably the most telling on me but going into the Assembly was completely different in terms of the formality and the difference to the grassroots work of a councillor.
 
“On the first or second day I was going in and it felt like people were ignoring you. There was a security guard and I introduced myself. He called me sir and I asked him not to because I am nobody's sir. He stopped me a day later and said Fra I am obligated to call you that but I was no different from him.
 
“It was all about building those relationships up whether it was on a political level or with the other staff in the building. You can build friendships up there that will hold you in good stead.
 
“The first big motion that I had down was to try and deal with the registration of landlords. That got support right across the Assembly and the last thing I did on the day I left was to introduce a  bill on the abolition of car parking charges at our hospitals.”
 
Discussing his reservations about taking his seat in Stormont Fra said that it always felt strange.
 
“One of the things you realised was that you had to make the building your own and we were able to do that. It is always difficult given the history of Stormont but unionists don’t have a God given right to try and block nationalists or republicans. We were there to represent the people who put us there.
 
“I remember the first time going up past the statue of Carson and I definitely felt uneasy. But I also felt uneasy going into City Hall. To us it is a site of struggle but you always have to remember what you are striving for.”
 
Fra says he loved the people he represented over the years and hopes he effectively represented them. 
 
“Whether it is through the Assembly or Council, Belfast as a city has changed. That is, in my eye, because republicans have used their elective power to change the city.
 
“It is a big step for me now. A lot of people have stopped me and wished me well in my retirement but I have had to take into consideration my health and my wife’s health. I have made the right decision.
 
“I have made way for people who are younger, who have the energy and are committed to the politics that we have aspired to. Although as someone once said – I haven’t gone away, you know.
 
“I helped set up a number of community groups in the Lower West Belfast area which I am still on the committees. I hope to be more active with them. I might have left the electoral arena but my commitment to the end goal of Irish unity hasn’t dwindled and I hope that I am alive to see that happen.”