Bernadette McAliskey was walking through the giant Waterford glass factory along with union leaders and leaders of the local H Block committee on Monday June 8. the final leg of her tour through the constituencies in which H Block prisoners are standing in the 26 county general election.
Cheers came behind all the work benches, and a great banging Sle these a ross Grow 15-year-old apprentice glass blowers who were holding long pipes at the end. They greeted her of demonstrativelv. them shouted, 'Speech!
Speech!'.
Stopping every few workbenches she was inTrocuced to leading H Block activists throughout the factorv complex where more than 3000 people work. It was obvious that she was the heroine of the immense majority of Wonderful Many older women came up to her. I heard a rumber of them say variasions on the theme of: 'It's wonaerrur to see you back, how do you feel?' young fellow wearing a campaign badge or rine wael, nistorically imperialist of ne the more pro-bourgeois parties, said: •You know a lot of Fine Gael people are going to gIve their second preferences to the prisoners.' At lunchbreak meeting, Bernadette acked the failure of the Labour Party to defend the people of the north against imperialist oppression Frank Cluskey (head of Labour Party) chinks that if he doesn't She was on mention the north, no one will notice how far he has gone trom the principles of Larkin and Connolly, but the north won't go away. The British are atbreak the heart and the soul of the people of the north but we'll give up. There's no wav back now Once people have stood accept slavery.
Slavery In Drogheda, another centre, Bernadette had spoken to a crowd of thousands in the aowntown arca on rrida)
June. Paraphrasing the apostle and the martyr of revolutionary nationalism, Patrick Pearse. she said, 'We in the north can't go back now. There are worse things than death. And slavery is one of them.
the Cared crowd to take the trade unions from the leaders that betray them and to workers' return organisations the forefront of the struggle.
Bernadette was on She VCrY covered nearly six hundred miles LIBC first dav her tour. Back and forth the island aCrOSS Cavan to Sligo and from Sligo to Longford. Mullingar and Draghedia and that night at 8 o'clock she out she found it nearly impossible to get away. The crowd can only be describ Despite the exhausting pace of the tour her nadette was more and more buoyant. She had been worried, along with most other leaders of the H Block movement, about the chances for success of such an election campaign. The form was determined by the traditionalist wing of the republican movement. It made for division and prevented the H Block committees taking full advantage of the opportunities offered to them by the election.
A list of nine prisoner candidates was drawn up, REPUBLICAN strong that the campaign would score successes. In Longford, a fairly small town, there was a crowd of thousands, the largest at such an occasion since the 1920s.
In Dundalk there was also a crowd of thousands.
was even more enthusiastic. There were many young people. Bernadette said: 'The papers are talking about the so-called cynicism of youth saying that they are making fun of the elections and politicians. cynicism, that's common who are re resent prisoner ang prisoners hunger strikers. nere Block demonstration.' Bernadette stressed that unlike the other candidates the prisoner candidates did not make promises, could not make pro'they can only ask for your help', but she was sure that the plain people of Ireland would understand that the cause of the tant than begging for a few crumbs trom ment: 'The politicians can only sve you wollats yours by right, she said, 'You don't have to grovel for 1t.
In traditionally republican north Kerry the crowd and Ballybunion filled the centra sauares and streets but here in republican countrv it was bernadette that brought out the broad support.In Ballybunion the local campaign's organiser told me that he reckoned about half the crowd came to hear her The streets of the town were lammed for hours She got a huge cheer when she said she knew the peo ple of Kerry would not let At a big training centre in Waterford the instruc tors welcomed her in, beaming and shaking her hand. . She spoke to youths MAKE HBLOCK THE ISSUE Vincent VOTE