Religious divides rise to the fore in campaigning

THE election campaign in Fermanagh was the most uninteresting proceedings imaginable.

But for the display of brilliant posters advising the electorate, no one would be aware that a contest was proceeding.

In the old days, meetings were held here and there, and electors were familiar with the features of the man they were voting for.

In this fight, the people of Fermanagh would not know Mr. Harbison or Mr. Allen, if they saw them.

Mr. James A. Pringle, one Unionist candidate, however, is well known throughout the county, having been a practising solicitor in Enniskillen as a member of Falls & Pringle for a number of years.

There was no meeting on the Unionist side with the exception of one in Enniskillen on last Monday night when the two Unionist candidates addressed an enthusiastic gathering of Loyalists in the Orange Hall.

The Nationalist Sinn Fein party have had no meetings in Fermanagh at all, but on Sunday morning, the Roman Catholic priests used the altars to deliver their advice to their flocks to vote in a solid body for Mr. Harbison and Mr. Cahir Healy.

Many of the Roman Catholics resent this importation of political propaganda into the affairs of the Church, and in one instance the parish priest of one of the most important parishes in the county on Sunday morning advised his people not to bother about Nationalists or Sinn Fein.

“Vote solid for Harbison and Healy – it is a fight of religious against religion.”

There has been a feeling that Nationalists who own property are very charry about going into the Free State.

Farmers who have purchased their holdings did not feel like allying themselves with the Free State in its present unsettled state, and especially those farmers who live near the Free State border feared that the Boundary Commission might cut off and put them ‘over the border’.