Mourne District Council

Josephine O’Hare

I was elected in May 1993 to Newry and Mourne District Council and served as an SDLP Councillor for Crotlieve until 2010. For the first eight years, I was the only female Councillor, and it took four years of constant correction to get Council to address the Chamber as ‘Councillors’, and not ‘gentlemen’. Though, even then, it was often ‘Councillors and Mrs O’Hare’.

Serving as a Councillor during the Troubles had its challenges. There was also a stage when a number of SDLP Councillors received bomb threats. We cut down the bushes around our house, and the Northern Ireland Office put in sensor lights and gave me a device for checking if there was a bomb under my car. I was also sent a bullet with a sympathy card, and I got threatening phone calls in the middle of the night.

In 1999 I was elected Chairperson of Newry and Mourne District Council. It was a very busy year as it incorporated part of the Millennium year, but I found it very interesting and I enjoyed meeting people. It never failed to surprise me, that when I turned up for an event, people expected a male, rather than a female Chairperson.

Local government can also be very parochial. If you wanted something for your area, you had to first persuade your party colleagues, and then the other parties to support your project. One of the projects I lobbied for was the extension and refurbishment of our youth community centre in Mayobridge. Between grant aid and Council support we raised £350,000 to extend and refurbish it. So there are times when you are supporting a project that benefits the whole Council and other times you were fighting tooth and nail for your own electoral area.

Looking back, it was a privilege to represent people, because a vote to me is a very precious thing and so many people in the world don’t have it. If someone gives you a vote, the very least you can do is to represent them to the best of your ability.

I’m very proud of the fact that at the last election, 40% of the SDLP candidates fielded were female. Politics can be difficult for women particularly if you have a young family, and society is still not that open to women going out there and doing what a man does.

A Councillor with thirty years continuous service with Newry and Mourne District Council

Brendan Curran

I am now an Independent Councillor, but I was first elected in 1985 as one of three Sinn Féin Councillors in Newry and Mourne District Council. This was the first time that Sinn Féin had contested local government elections in the North of Ireland.

At the time, it was a dilemma for me whether or not to stand for election, as I was about to get married and had secured a job with Council. This was an achievement for me. As a former Republican prisoner recently released from prison, jobs were hard to get.

I was approached by the Republican movement and asked to represent them. I was also interested in a number of local issues such as housing and improving run down areas of the town, so my campaign must have struck a chord with voters as I got elected. The electoral count was in Newry Town Hall and when I was elected I was raised above supporters’ heads and carried down the main stairs. This was a historic moment, as there had not been a Sinn Féin representative for the town of Newry since 1922 when Newry Urban District Council was dissolved after Partition.

I had to give up my job, because you couldn’t be a Councillor and work for the Council at the same time.

I sat in Council with two other Sinn Féin colleagues, who represented electoral wards in south Armagh.

I remember there was great opposition to Sinn Féin in local government at this time, mainly as part of a wider Unionist campaign. Many of the issues we raised, or projects we lobbied for, were blocked because of the party we represented. So my passage in the Council hasn’t been at all easy and it has been very frustrating and at times very dangerous for my family and I, simply because of who I was, and my politics and background.

In 1998 I became the first Sinn Féin Chairman of Council, and I saw this as a sign of equality. Some people embraced my term of office whilst others blocked it, but it gave me a window into other people’s lives to where people of different political viewpoints were coming from.

I am retiring as a Councillor in March 2015 and in retrospect I have found my journey as a Councillor a very interesting one, it has been rewarding and I personally got a buzz out of helping my electorate.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to the staff and volunteers of Newry and Mourne Museum for their assistance in this exhibition and accompanying booklet:

Declan Carroll

Joanne Cummins

Jackie Dodds

Caroline Hegerty

Conor Keenan

David Kilner

Greg McAteer

Amanda McKinstry

Shane McGivern

Anna Savage

Dympna Tumilty

Pauline Walsh

Dr. Robert Whan

We are grateful to those who contributed articles to this booklet.

Thanks also to the Northern Ireland Museums Council for the funds to conserve artefacts used in this exhibition through the Pilot Community Engagement project and to Landfill Communities Fund administered by Ulster Wildlife.

We would also like to extend a special thanks to those who contributed to the exhibition through donations, loans, expertise or memories including:

Catherine Brooks

Brendan Curran

Samuel Donaldson

Desmond Egan

Hilary Halliday

Mr & Mrs D Higgins

Jacinta Higgins

Catherine Hudson

Eamon Larkin

William McAlpine

Jim McCart

Mary McDonald

Mr. & Mrs McDougall

Ray McGonigle

Eileen McParland

Colin Moffett

John Murphy

Josephine O’Hare

Kevin O’Neill

Jack Patterson

Marie Quinn

Cyril E. Stevenson

Rosemary Stretton

Jacqueline Turley

Staff of The Mourne Observer

Staff of The Mourne Outlook

Every effort has been made to correctly attribute photographs used in this booklet and the accompanying exhibition.

Compiled by Noreen Cunningham and Dr. Ken Abraham

Andrew Moffett was first elected in 1977 as Councillor for Newry and Mourne District Council. He served as an Ulster Unionist Councillor for the Fews areas during the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. He was also Chairman in 1991 – 1992. After a short break from public life, he was re-elected. His late father, Stanley Moffett, served as a Councillor for the Damolly Division in Newry No. 1 Rural District Council. Newry and Mourne Museum Collection