FROM THE ARCHIVES:A 1973 referendum in the North on the Border was boycotted by all nationalist groups and showed 57 per cent of the total electorate favoured remaining in the UK. Walter Ellis sampled the mood in Belfast on polling day, during which one British soldier was shot dead and six bombs exploded in Belfast – and five in Derry. – JOE JOYCE
FOR A city in turmoil, Belfast was remarkably quiet yesterday. A referendum on the issue of the existence of the state was in progress, and bombs were punctuating the passing of the electoral hours, but there was little fuss and no bother.
Up the Falls Road, Catholics studiously ignored the whole affair and carried on their normal business with scarcely a sideways glance at the official stations provided liberally by a democratic England. Scarcely a voter darkened these doors for an entire 12 hours.
The Shankill, however, burgeoned with determined loyalists: they littered the street and their flags were a riot of British and Ulster hues. Whether they voted often remains a matter of conjecture, and Mr Ivan Cooper [SDLP] claims they excelled themselves in this traditional skill – but they certainly voted early. By 8am, the queues were already well-formed and extensive, and the ballot papers clattered into the boxes like newspapers off the presses. I did not ask anyone which way their vote had gone.
This leaves what is known to those who live there as “residential Belfast”, the vast averages of suburbia. Here the voting was steady but unspectacular.
Quite a number of Protestants in the middle-income, middle-attitude brigade stayed at home during the day and left the burden of maintaining the link with the workers who have most to gain from it. One thinks naturally of the Alliance Party in this connection, but that is not perhaps fair since it has been campaigning for a positive result from the poll at least as hard as anyone else – which is not saying much.
Journeying back into the centre, the day now warm and the sky a dusty blue, I came next to the St Patrick’s Hall polling station in Dee Street, whose UDR sentries had lost their rifles to an armed gang the night before. Dignity may have been ruffled, but security had been restored, and in this UDA stronghold voting was heavy and unending.
A German camera crew were trying to do a talk-piece on the incident and were meeting with difficulties from a swarm of denimed children. “Could you please shut up for just one minute. Germany won’t be able to make out what’s going on here.”
Lastly, I visited Turf Lodge, a power base of the Official IRA. The estate is bisected by the Monagh Road, and on this occasion the road was blocked by concrete and pieces of twisted motor vehicles. A few bricks were thrown optimistically by kids at an army water cannon a hundred yards or so away, and I inquired (on this day of the Border referendum): “Is there something going on today?” “No,” a 14-year-old replied, “just a riot.”
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