Challenge By Gerry Foley in Enniskillen being counted. I had county hall.
Since the morning victory for the H BlOC prisoner Bobby Sands had been HOIC and more likely. The vote had been high. The BONSIS admitted openly that they had been relying on a low poll It was obvious that the abstentionist Catholics had materialised There spoiled ballots and most of them seemed to be protest votes against une oncid didate by more extreme unuses Ballots could be seen marked 'No Surrender!' Paisley! and 'God bless The official unionist campaign manager began talk. ing about the possibility of a serious setback to community relations, meaning relations between Catholics and Protestants.
Banner I went through the hall down the outside staircase to the courtyard through a line of heavily armed police. Several hundred persons had gathered behind the banner of the Enniskillen H Block youth committee They were chanting the favourite slogan the Ilass demonstrations in support polítical prisoners two, four, Pipen it seven, eight;
seven, eight, open up the Armagh gate Then one of the Sands campaign observers at the count came running down the stairs to meet crowd. A huge cheer went up. The crowd began to shout for the Sands campaign manager Owen CarHe came down and said partly the Irish language: 'Ladies and gentlemen, friends would like to claim victory on behalf of Bobby Sands. Victory to the prisoners in H Block!' Carron went on to say that the nationalist people had given a clear message: 'It's time for the British to IT WAS 3pm in the courthouse where the ballots in the Fermanagh South election were been standing for several hours in the press room behind the they always should have done - get out. Anthem The first verse of the Irish national anthem Santed o 'Soldiers are whose lives are pledg catcal some nave come from a land across the sea. no shall shelter the despot or the slave.
But the victory was ex. pressed more powerfully by the quiet speeches of Bobby Sands' mother and sister than by the trium. phant shouting and sing Throughout the paign Mrs Sands had not spoken audience were always told that she didn't feel up to it. Now for the first time she spoke in a calm voice to thank the campaign workers and voters.
That was the measure of the hope that the cam paign victory had giver her. The crowd celebration that I was told would go on all night I left for Coalisland were urere was to oca vic tory rally at 9 o'clock. As we drove in. the streets o this small town were lined with thousands of people. Band The local band was ou playing the 'Broad Brimmer of the 1KA' Behind it youths were waying large tricolours, the flag of the double insurrection seen once again to be lifted on the wings of history.
I could see the flames of a big bonfire that had been lit outside the nigr wire fence surrounding the police barracks.
The band went on to play Roddy McCorley, song about an insurgent hanged by the almost two centuries ago It is also the tune of the 'Ballad of Sean South', an IRA guerrilla killed during the 1956-61 campaign in a town in the Fermanagh/
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