The Dan McAreavey Trophy is awarded annually to the SDLP Party member who has made a  significant contribution to the Party. The winner is announced just before the Party Leader’s speech.

This year it was a joint award……..honouring an Individual and a Branch.

Just before the 2011 Council/Assembly Elections, it was widely predicted that SDLP would be wiped out on the Strabane Council. It was a prediction that almost came true. Patsy Kelly taking a seat in Mourne DEA.

As readers of this blog will know, I only re-joined the SDLP in August 2011, after a thirty year sabbatical. The nature of being an “independent pan-nationalist” blogger is different from being a “SDLP” blogger………and yet I have to maintain a certain credibility. I am occasionally privy to information that only a SDLP member knows…….and a recurring topic of SDLP conversation during 2012 has been that something remarkable has been happening in Strabane.

Put simply, the local SDLP wanted to know where they had gone wrong. And the message they got from the Strabane doorsteps was that the people of Strabane never left the SDLP………..”the SDLP had left the people of Strabane”, that was the honest message delivered in his acceptance speech by Daniel Wray McCrossan (pictured above).

I am privy to numbers but I wont discuss them here. Suffice to say that the Miracle of Strabane is that local people have signed up in droves. Why? Because Sinn Féin have taken local votes for granted. Because people, especially in times of Civil Rights abuses…and welfare cuts …people actually need a strong SDLP.

This of course resonates with the SDLP. It resonates with me. I did not join the SDLP aged 59 because it was a success story. I joined because it was at a low point. I had to do something. Just like the people of Strabane…..and of course Strabane is only the most obvious example of revival. A number of “new” SDLP members in Strabane are among forty or so “local representatives” appointed to target seats in several DEAs and assist MLAs and Councillors.

I am actually quite pleased to be able to publish this in a blog. People have been asking. “where is the evidence for SDLP revival”. It has happening quietly under the radar across the North.

And for good measure Daniel was elected to the SDLP Executive.