CNN logo
Navigation
 
COMMUNITY 
Message Boards 
Chat 
Feedback 

SITE SOURCES 
Contents 
Help! 
Search 
CNN Networks 

SPECIALS 
Quick News 
Almanac 
Video Vault 
News Quiz 




Pathfinder/Warner Bros


Barnes and Noble



Election Watch grfk

Q & A

Insight
World banner
rule
Now quicker European access

Vote reaction: Joy tinged with skepticism

Nationalists
Republican politicians, who favor an end to British rule, celebrate after vote results are announced  
May 23, 1998
Web posted at: 5:59 p.m. EDT (2159 GMT)

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (CNN) -- Despite gray skies and a frigid wind, those attending Belfast's spring fair Saturday afternoon sent up a cheer when they heard the news -- peace had been given a chance.

"I'm over the moon," said Robert Fogarty, a Catholic attending the festival. "In my heart, I always knew [the yes vote] was going to be higher than the 60 percent the polls predicted."

"I'm hoping this will be the start of a new era," said Sam Crozier, another Catholic listening to a pop band belt out Irish folk songs. "Anything is better than the past 30 years."

CNN's Mike Hanna reports
icon 2 min. VXtreme video

After three decades of sectarian strife, voters in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland gave strong majorities to a proposed peace pact, under which Catholics and Protestants will share power in a new assembly that will govern the province.

Unionist politicians
Pro-British, unionist politicians embrace  

But, having seen peace initiatives come and go before, few people were entirely free of skepticism.

"Right now, we don't know what we have said 'yes' to," said Melanie Williamson, a Protestant who was attending the festival with her Catholic boyfriend, Michael O'Sullivan.

"The 'yes' vote is wonderful, but the test will be whether the new assembly can be made to work," he said.

Irish in U.S. greet news happily

The vote also was greeted joyfully by many Irish Americans in the United States, where there are 44 million people of Irish descent. George Mitchell, a former U.S. senator from Maine, was the chief mediator during the negotiations that spawned the pact.

"The fact that [the 'yes' vote is] over 70 percent is really a tremendous endorsement of this agreement," said Naill O'Dowd, editor of Irish Voice, a publication in New York City. "This agreement was put together not to please everybody but to make everybody think -- and make everybody think about what was going to happen in Ireland for the next generation."

"It's at least one step on the stairs. We have 10 steps to go," said Hugh McMorrow, who lives in Woodlawn, a predominantly Irish-Catholic New York neighborhood.

Explosives found near border after results announced

Of course, not everyone greeted the 'yes' vote joyously. Evidence of that came just hours after the referendum results were announced, when Irish police intercepted two cars carrying explosives near the republic's border with Northern Ireland.

The cars were headed north when they were caught after a short police chase.

Cars
Hours after the referendum, two northbound cars carrying explosives were stopped near the Irish Republic's border with Northern Ireland  

"On checking the cars, they discovered what appeared to be a large quantity of homemade explosives," said Detective Superintendent Michael Finnegan.

The drivers of the cars were from the Irish Republic. It was not immediately clear whether they were part of the splinter groups opposed to the peace pact.

Despite the lopsided vote in favor of the peace plan, the Rev. Ian Paisley, the hard-line pro-British Protestant politician who campaigned strongly for a 'no' vote, claimed victory, saying that most Protestants in Northern Ireland voted against the deal.

"I feel that what I said was right. We got the unionist votes," he said. "I have not lost this referendum."

But at the Belfast hall where the final vote results were announced, 'yes' supporters yelled, "Go home, dinosaur" at Paisley.

Here is a sampling of other reaction to the historic vote:

  • "I think the same, I'm sure, as many people do -- that this is the beginning of something, not the end." -- Colin Parry, whose 12-year-old son, Tim, was killed by an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb in 1993 in Warrington, England.

  • "The decision of the people to endorse this agreement was not simply a political act, it was a command to all political leaders to begin the work of peace." -- Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.

  • "A clear majority have endorsed this agreement. We have taken an important step forward." -- David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists, Northern Ireland's largest Protestant party.

  • "The war is over." -- David Ervine of the Progressive Unionists, a Protestant party linked to paramilitary groups.

  • "A bad day for democracy." -- Bob McCartney, leader of the small United Kingdom Unionist Party and a vociferous "no" campaigner.

  • "If God spares me to live long enough, I hope to grow old in a united Ireland." -- Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA-allied Sinn Fein party.

Correspondent Cynthia Tornquist and Reuters contributed to this report.

 
rule

Special section:

Message board:

Newsmaker profiles:

Related stories:

Related sites:

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.

Infoseek search  

Message Boards Sound off on our
message boards & chat
Back to the top

© 1998 Cable News Network, Inc.
A Time Warner Company
All Rights Reserved.

Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.