1. New York street with O'Neill's Bar 2. Irish and American flags outside Irish bar 3. Sign "Election Results Inside" 4. Wide shot interior of bar 5. Man looking at computer results of elections 6. Computer screen, showing Northern Ireland constituencies 7. Close up computer screen, voting districts of West Tyrone, West Belfast 8. SOUNDBITE: (English) Rita O'Hare, Sinn Fein Representative to the U-S "Pat Doherty, I'm confidently predicting, is going to be the next Sinn Fein representative for West Tyrone, we've won that." 9. People clapping 10. Wide shot pub, Rita on phone and people listening 11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Niall O'Dowd, Publisher of Irish Voice "I do believe it's very important that Nationalists in Northern Ireland understand how powerful their vote is. For thirty years we had really bad violence in Northern Ireland, we didn't achieve much by it and we're showing today that we can achieve so much more by the ballot box than we ever could by bombings." 12. Woman looking at Irish newspaper at bar 13. People listening to Irish radio on speaker phone, hearing election results of West Belfast 14. Phone 15. People listening to Irish radio on speaker phone, announcing Gerry Adams' victory 16. SOUNDBITE: (English) Rita O'Hare, Sinn Fein Representative to the U-S "It is a huge endorsement of the peace process, of the Good Friday Agreement, and of the power-sharing government, across the board that the vast majority of people, Republicans, Nationalists, Unionists, Catholics, Protestants, want to see work." 14. Men standing front of Irish posters in bar 15. SOUNDBITE: (English) Rita O'Hare, Sinn Fein Representative to the U-S "There is just such a huge recognition and gratitude about the role that America, particularly Irish Americans, played in the peace process." 16. Wide shot, pub STORYLINE: Irish New Yorkers gathered on Friday morning at an Irish pub in Manhattan to hear the results of the election of Northern Ireland's 18 seats to the British Parliament. While the ballots for the rest of the United Kingdom were counted late on Thursday night -- giving a resounding victory to Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party -- counting for Northern Ireland began on Friday morning, with results due out later in the day. Irish Americans - many of whom voted via absentee ballot from New York for the Republican party Sinn Fein - were anxious to hear the election results. To keep abreast of the latest results, some were logged in the the BBC election website. And Irish radio was playing over the pub's speakers. In Northern Ireland, where the four biggest parties fit into either British Protestant or Irish Catholic camps, the outcome was being seen as a crucial test for Northern Ireland's own joint Catholic-Protestant administration. There was considerable excitement about the results of West Tyrone, where it was expected that a Sinn Fein candidate would win over the Unionist incumbent. Rita O'Hare, Sinn Fein's representative to the United States, received an early call from West Tyrone indicating that Pat Doherty was the likely winner there. Many Irish-Americans were happy with the election results in Northern Ireland, not just because Sinn Fein was expected to gain seats, but because the Republican victory was achieved through the ballot box instead of through violence. The battle to fill Northern Ireland's seats in the British Parliament spurred a turnout exceeding 70 percent, much higher than in the rest of Britain , where nonetheless Prime Minister Tony Blair returned to power with a commanding majority. The Northern Irish power-sharing coalition, the key achievement of a 1998 peace accord, involves all four parties. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/21a8d84437e8a9895d7dc0c59c221d1c Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork

• published: 21 Jul 2015
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