Born: August 30th, 1935
Died: September 18th, 2025
In May 1998, Patrick (Pat) Bradley, who has died aged 90, was designated as chief electoral officer to announce the result of the referendum on the Belfast Agreement, which was famously signed on Good Friday the previous month.
He didn’t have much sleep in the run-up to the count but he was sufficiently sharp to realise that such were the divisions and tensions between the Yes and No camps, that any glitches or missteps could have incendiary consequences - there was a huge media presence, and the world was watching, he must get it right.
RM Block
When the voting finished on May 22nd, the ballot boxes were brought to the count centre in the King’s Hall in south Belfast. Bradley had appointed one of his staff to stay with the boxes overnight in case of any skulduggery, but that did not satisfy the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, who wanted one of his party members to remain with the boxes also.
Paisley assured Bradley he wasn’t implying he or any of his staff would tamper with the votes but he feared some more sinister interference. Bradley gave permission for the DUP man to stay, but he decided he must also stay with the boxes. “By so doing, I was keen to ensure that there were no grounds at all on which the veracity of the result could be challenged or brought into question,” he said.
In the event, Bradley remained through to the morning, but the DUP representative only lasted half the night. Bradley just had time for a shower and a quick breakfast before returning to the count centre.
In announcing the result, he decided to dispense with the normal initial detail of the number of votes cast, spoiled votes and the like, because he feared too long a preamble could trigger trouble in an already agitated hall.
In order to “dissipate the tension”, he went straight for the “punchline”: “I hereby give notice the percentage vote in the referendum was as follows: Yes, 71.12 per cent...” Such was the cheering that it took him some moments before he could announce the No result, of 28.88 per cent.
As he was from a Catholic and nationalist background, he understood that many of his co-religionists would never consider such a job because it was seen as supporting the unionist status quo
It is a clip that has been seen again and again, and was even used in the final episode of TV series Derry Girls. It truly marked a new beginning, and Bradley was conscious that here was history being made. He was involved in “almost 30 countries” doing electoral work over a long career, but concluding the referendum count successfully was “the highest point” in his life, his “proudest moment”.
Bradley was born in 1935 in Ewing Street in Derry, and educated at the Brow of the Hill primary school and the city’s St Columb’s College. He worked as a laboratory technician at DuPont in Derry and then as an official dealing with small business grants at LEDU (the Local Enterprise Development Unit).
He didn’t feel particularly secure promoting new businesses in a “virtual war zone”, and “with a family and mortgage” to support and manage, he successfully applied for the post of deputy electoral officer based in Derry, answerable to the chief electoral officer in Belfast.
As he was from a Catholic and nationalist background, he understood that many of his co-religionists would never consider such a job because it was seen as supporting the unionist status quo. But he viewed it as “an opportunity to ensure that elections were run, and seen to be run, in a fair and equitable manner, and to seek appropriate changes from within”.
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He had no experience, knowledge or particular interest in the political or electoral process, but he learned quickly on the job and in 1980 took over as chief electoral officer, gaining the concession that he could remain living in Derry, a city that “very much ran through his veins”, but with commutes to Belfast.
Almost inevitably, he was targeted by republican paramilitaries. On one occasion, as he recalled in his memoir Ballots, Bombs and Bullets, a phone caller with a “determined” voice informed him he would not be permitted to run elections in Derry.
He told the caller in an equally determined tone that he would carry out his responsibilities. Not long after, a 200lb was placed near his Derry offices, but fortunately was defused.
Nonetheless, Bradley held to his task overseeing numerous often difficult elections, including the election of Bobby Sands in Fermanagh South Tyrone during the hunger strikes of 1981. He carried out an overhaul of the electoral system and was viewed as a global expert in elections and conflict resolution. He served as a senior or lead technical adviser in elections in close to 30 countries across five continents - from South Africa to Saudi Arabia, Kosovo to Hong Kong, and Russia to Lebanon.
This included visits to more hotspots, including one to East Timor, where he escaped unscathed after being shot at. He retired from his chief electoral officer role in 2000 but continued to work as an adviser on elections around the world for a number of years thereafter.
One of the banes of Bradley’s life was dealing with electoral fraud, and he had some good stories about Northern Ireland’s notoriety for voting early and voting often, and how in particular the system of postal voting was abused.
He remembered the case of a parish where almost the entire Catholic population seemed to be heading on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, making it necessary for them to exercise their democratic right by postal vote.
“In another case, 39 patients in a hospital which had 55 patients suffering from senile dementia were sufficiently recovered to apply for postal votes, when previously they were unable to sign their names.”
He also sardonically referred to Northern students in Britain applying for postal votes who claimed to be “doing masters and PhDs in Cambridge and Oxford”, but couldn’t even “spell university”.
“In one election,” he recalled, “the applicant for a postal vote said he had both of his legs amputated. But when he applied in the next election he said he had to be on a skiing holiday in Austria.” The application was denied.
Bradley was awarded an MBE in 1986 and a CBE in 1999 “for service to the electoral process”.
Pat Bradley is survived by his wife Mary, children Aileen, Dermot and Steve, and his granddaughter Zara.
