A Giant of Democracy, RIP

Suaimhneas síoraí ar ár gcara mór, an t-údar Pat Bradley, a fuair bás inné.

Our heartfelt condolences to the family of our friend and author Pat Bradley, who died in Derry's Altnagelvin Hospital yesterday aged 90.

Pat was a one-man ambassador for democracy, for the Irish peace process and for Derry.

From East Belfast to East Timor, and from South Armagh to South Africa, he spent his career running elections, surviving wars and delivering democracy.

He was also a most entertaining story-teller and brilliant writer, whose memoir, 'Ballots, Bombs and Bullets', casts an unflinching insider's eye over Northern Irish political scene during some of his darkest days.

However, even after retiring as Chief Electoral Officer, the man who famously announced the result of the Good Friday Agreement Referendum in 1998 (which earned him a cameo in Derry Girls) was determined to continue his mission to bring democracy to the world.

For many years, Pat worked with the United Nations, the Commonwealth Office and the European Union, introducing (or enhancing) democracy from Africa to Eastern Europe to Asia. The learning, and thick skin, he acquired from his work in Northern Ireland would serve him well.

In all, he worked as the lead advisor for elections in five continents, in more than twenty-five countries including Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Russia, South Africa, and Yemen.

In the throes of his distinguished career the Bishop Street man was threatened many times, shot at, kidnapped and bombed. On his first polling day in 1974, just a few months into the job, he was petrol-bombed while taking ballot boxes both in and out of a station in a republican area - and was also forced to remove, at some risk, a giant Union Jack draped over the door of a station in a unionist area.

A man of imposing stature, he went nose-to-nose with the toughest of the tough at home and abroad - including Ian Paisley and Margaret Thatcher - but he always stuck to his task 'without fear, bias or rancour', his abiding goal to serve the public fairly and faithfully.

He also worked ferociously hard - travelling up to Belfast every day on the six a.m. red-eye, getting back to his Talbot Park home sometimes in the small hours of the following morning.

Despite spending a lifetime among the most powerful people in the world, Pat was always gentle, modest and humble – and a joy to work with. A recipient of the St Columb's College Alumnus Illustrissimus award in 2008, he was awarded both an MBE and a CBE, which he said made it easier for him to travel in certain parts and gave his opinion greater weight at the top tables. But he wore all his awards very lightly and never referred to them once in his memoir.

His book is one of the most eminently-readable accounts of how democracy works at the coalface - full of colourful stories about personation and electoral abuse, and vignettes of political mischief and civil service interference. His favourite story was about how an Eglinton returning officer once got up out of his seat to sniff a would-be voter, and then told him he was remarkably fresh for someone who had been dead for three months.

As a how-to manual for students of democracy across the globe, 'Ballots, Bombs & Bullets' may never be bettered. And Pat Bradley, a giant of democracy, will never be forgotten.