1981 HUNGER STRIKE 30th ANNIVERSARY | A WATERSHED IN THE REPUBLICAN STRUGGLE

April 1981 – The election of Bobby Sands MP

Bobby Sands

ON APRIL 10th 1981, Bobby Sands, Officer Commanding the IRA prisoners in Long Kesh and the very first of the H-Block Hunger Strikers fighting for the restoration of political status for all POWs, was elected Member of Parliament for Fermanagh/South Tyrone.
Bobby contested the election as an ‘Anti-H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner’ candidate.
It was such an historic event that people all over the world thought would help save the life of Bobby Sands in a clear affirmation in a democratic election that he and his comrades were political, not criminal.
Owen Carron, Bobby’s election agent, told An Phoblacht in 1998 in a retrospective on the H-Blocks Hunger Strike that he saw the election of Bobby Sands as a watershed in the current phase of the struggle. It was most definitely a watershed, opening a new front for republicans with new opportunities for advancing the cause of Irish freedom and reunification.
Owen said that, within republicanism, it was a decisive break with the past. It overcame the movement’s psychological fear of electoral defeat and it demonstrated the power of popular mobilisation around republican demands.
“In time I think we’ll look back and identify the struggle around political status and the subsequent election of Bobby Sands as a defining moment in the struggle against British rule in Ireland. Since 1981, Sinn Féin’s electoral strategy has developed from strength to strength. Thatcher’s criminalisation strategy never recovered and subsequent British governments continue to pay the price of that defeat.”

• Here is an edited version of the lengthy article from An Phoblacht/Republican News on April 18th 1981 by Peter Arnlis on Bobby’s election, headlined ‘Poll Victory.’

TO ELECTION WORKERS for H-Blocks Hunger Striker Bobby Sands, the high poll of 86.8%, recorded on polling day Thursday 9th April in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone Westminster by-election was the first favourable sign indicating at least that the boycott advocated by some executive members of the SDLP had been ignored by the nationalist people.
The next encouraging sign came during the count in Enniskillen on Friday when it could be seen that SDLP strongholds such as Irvinestown in County Fermanagh and Donaghmore in County Tyrone were returning a very low percentage of spoiled votes, again ignoring the advice of the SDLP leadership who, just as much as UDR and RUC checkpoints, had attempted to sabotage an election victory for Bobby Sands.
Bobby, always a few hundred votes ahead during the count, looked as if he had made it.

Confident
From lunchtime onwards, republicans were quietly confident that their interpretation of the count was correct, though many journalists were skeptical (because of republicans’ inexperience at this game, they said!) and were influenced enough by briefings from born optimist James Cooper, Official Unionist candidate Harry West’s election agent, to report the candidates as neck and neck.
This had the effect of attracting cocky loyalists to Enniskillen Technical College, the venue for the count. However, by about three o’clock they discreetly dispersed and were replaced by a growing crowd of proud nationalists who could taste victory.
An “Enniskillen Youth Against H-Block” banner appeared and the chanting built up to a crescendo until the announcement was made by the returning officer, Alistair Patterson, at 4:25pm:
“The result was 30,492 votes for Bobby Sands (Anti-H-Block/Armagh political prisoner), 29,046 for Harry West (Official Unionist) and 3,280 unmarked or spoiled votes.”
The loyalists were totally demoralised. The RUC guards visibly shaken. The media, who almost unanimously predicted the opposite outcome, were humbled. And the jubilance of the republicans for turning the various establishments on their heads was expressed by veteran republican Kevin Agnew’s opening invective from the steps of the college. “Fellow terrorists,” he triumphantly addressed the crowd, to uproarious applause, each supporter ramming the word “terrorist” down all the various onlookers’ throats.

Amazing
The result was amazing given the many factors against a victory.
The high poll and low number of spoiled votes (over half of which were visibly Paisley-inspired anti-West ballot papers) were a clear rejection by the nationalist people of the advice given by the treacherous leadership of the SDLP.
Though Bobby Sands’s campaign was run by a broad-based committee (he ran on an anti-H-Block/Armagh political prisoner ticket), the SDLP leadership, sections of the Catholic Church, the Official Unionist Party and British parliament declared that to vote for Bobby Sands was to vote for the IRA.
They blackmailed and intimidated the nationalist electorate who nevertheless braved all arguments and threats and made republican Hunger Striker Bobby Sands a Westminster MP.

Crisis
British premier Margaret Thatcher, interviewed exclusively on ITN ‘News at Ten’ last Monday evening, was extremely evasive even when being questioned by a sympathetic interviewer. She reiterated that there is to be no change in British Government policy towards the North despite the election result.
On Tuesday, the British Cabinet met and reports after the grisly discussion indicated that ministers were told to prepare for the inevitable prospect of Bobby Sands’s death. The British Government reaffirmed that it had no intention of giving the prisoners their five demands and afterwards Thatcher conveniently took herself off to India and the Gulf States for an 11-day tour as the crisis point in Bobby Sands’s life rapidly approached.
• Bobby Sands was to die on Hunger Strike on May 5th 1981. Nine other H-Blocks Hunger Strikers were to also die that year.