The Bobby Sands Trust has extended sympathy to the family of Dafydd Elis-Thomas, former leader of Plaid Cymru and MP who became a member of the House of Lords in 1992, and who died on 7 February. His funeral will be held at Llandaf Cathedral, Cardiff on Friday aftenoon, 14 March 14, at 1.30pm.
Secretary of the Trust, Danny Morrison, said that ‘Whilst Dafydd’s contributions to Welsh public life have been widely recognized and celebrated I would like to pay tribute to his role in 1981 when he moved the second writ for a by-election in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, a brave act at the time for which he was excoriated.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had often claimed that the blanket men in the H-Blocks and the women on protest in Armagh Jail had no mandate therefore her government could not speak to them. Bobby Sands’ election victory in April 1981 as MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone presented her with an opportunity for a negotiated end to the hunger strike.
Instead Thatcher rushed through emergency legislation to amend the Representation of the People Act. This new law meant that no prisoners could stand in any subsequent by-election. The first writ had been moved by Ulster Unionist leader James Molyneaux who believed that his candidate, Harry West, would win. But Bobby Sands won and his election changed the political landscape for the better.
On 28 July 1981, Dafydd Elis-Thomas was the only MP in Westminster prepared to move the writ for a second by-election. He was attacked by former SDLP leader Gerry Fitt who called on the Speaker to reject the motion on a point of order. One Labour MP opposed the motion then withdrew his objection and the motion was passed.
Thatcher’s earlier change in the law meant that no hunger striker or political prisoner could contest the seat and for this reason Owen Carron, Bobby Sands’s former election agent, was put forward as the candidate and defeated Ken Maginnis of the Ulster Unionist Party on 20 August, the same day that Mickey Devine, the last of the ten hungers to die, passed away.
The elections of Bobby Sands, Owen Carron and, in the South, Kieran Doherty (who would die on hunger strike on 2 August) and Paddy Agnew (blanket man), was to profoundly change the political situation and from this period can be traced the electoral rise of Sinn Féin.
Dafydd Elis-Thomas was not only a tireless worker and passionate activist for his own people in Wales but his intervention would help change the course of Irish history.
