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1982 Belfast South By-election
The Belfast South by-election was held on 4 March 1982 following the death of Robert Bradford, Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Member of Parliament for Belfast South. Bradford had held the seat since the February 1974 general election, initially for the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party, but since 1978 as a UUP member. He was murdered by the Provisional IRA on 14 November 1981 while holding a political surgery in a community centre in Finaghy. Unusually, the Seanad Éireann passed a motion of sympathy for his death. While Belfast South was one of the UUP's strongest seats, they had suffered several electoral setbacks, and had lost two other Belfast seats to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) at the 1979 general election. The DUP had not contested Belfast South in 1979, so when they announced their intention to contest the by-election, many commentators expected them to win the seat. The UUP decided to stand Martin Smyth; (a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belfast South (UK Parliament Constituency)
Belfast South is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Claire Hanna of the SDLP. Boundaries 1885–1918: In the Borough of Belfast, that part of Cromac ward not in the constituency of Belfast East, that part of St. George's ward not in the constituency of Belfast West, and the townlands of Malone Lower and that part of Malone Upper within the parliamentary borough in the parish of Shankill. 1922–1974: The County Borough of Belfast wards of Cromac, Ormeau, and Windsor. 1974–1983: The County Borough of Belfast wards of Cromac, Ormeau, and Windsor, the District of Lisburn electoral divisions of Ardmore, Dunmurry, Finaghy, and Upper Malone, and the Rural District of Hillsborough electoral divisions of Breda and Edenderry. 1983–1997: The District of Belfast wards of Ballynafeigh, Cromac, Donegall, Finaghy, Malone, Ormeau, Rosetta, St George's, Stranmillis, University, Upper Malone, Willowfield, and Windsor. 1997–2010: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seanad Éireann
Seanad Éireann (, ; "Senate of Ireland") is the upper house of the Oireachtas (the Irish legislature), which also comprises the President of Ireland and Dáil Éireann (the lower house). It is commonly called the Seanad or Senate and its members senators (''seanadóirí'' in Irish, singular: ''seanadóir''). Unlike Dáil Éireann, it is not directly elected but consists of a mixture of members chosen by various methods. Its powers are much weaker than those of the Dáil and it can only delay laws with which it disagrees, rather than veto them outright. It can introduce new legislation. It has been located, since its establishment, in Leinster House. Composition Under Article 18 of the Constitution, Seanad Éireann consists of 60 senators, composed as follows: * Eleven nominated by the Taoiseach. * Six elected by the graduates of certain Irish universities: ** Three by graduates of the University of Dublin. ** Three by graduates of the National University of Ireland. * Forty- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unionist (Ireland)
Unionism is a political tradition on the island of Ireland that favours political union with Great Britain and professes loyalty to the British Crown and constitution. As the overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority, following Catholic Emancipation (1829) unionism mobilised to keep Ireland part of the United Kingdom and to defeat the efforts of Irish nationalists to restore a separate Irish parliament. Since Partition (1921), as Ulster Unionism its goal has been to maintain Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom and to resist a transfer of sovereignty to an all-Ireland republic. Within the framework of a 1998 peace settlement, unionists in Northern Ireland have had to accommodate Irish nationalists in a devolved government, while continuing to rely on the link with Britain to secure their cultural and economic interests. Unionism became an overarching partisan affiliation in Ireland in response to Liberal-minority government concessions to Irish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alliance Party Of Northern Ireland
The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI), or simply Alliance, is a liberal and centrist political party in Northern Ireland. As of the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, it is the third-largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, holding seventeen seats, and has made recent breakthroughs to place third in first preference votes in the 2019 European Parliament election and third highest-polling regionally at the 2019 UK general election. The party won one of the three Northern Ireland seats in the European Parliament, and one seat, North Down, in the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Founded in 1970 from the New Ulster Movement, the Alliance Party originally represented moderate and non-sectarian unionism. However, over time, particularly in the 1990s, it moved towards neutrality on the Union, and has come to represent wider liberal and non-sectarian concerns. It supports the Good Friday Agreement but maintains a desire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unionist Party Of Northern Ireland
The Unionist Party of Northern Ireland was a political party founded by Brian Faulkner in September 1974. Formation The party emerged following splits in the Ulster Unionist Party in 1973 and 1974 over the British government's white paper ''Northern Ireland Constitutional Proposals'', the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election, and the Sunningdale Agreement. Faulkner had led the majority of the UUP into a power-sharing coalition but in January 1974 he was deposed as leader as the anti-Sunningdale faction of the party won control. In the February 1974 general election a number of Faulkner's followers (including several sitting MPs) stood as Pro-Assembly Unionists against a coalition of the Ulster Unionist Party, the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party. They failed to win a single seat at Westminster, and this defeat contributed to the downfall of the power-sharing Executive established by Sunningdale. However they remained active and in Septemb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carry out duties that a country's military or police forces are unable or unwilling to handle. Other organizations may be considered paramilitaries by structure alone, despite being unarmed or lacking a combat role. Overview Though a paramilitary is, by definition, not a military, it is usually equivalent to a light infantry force in terms of strength, firepower, and organizational structure. Paramilitaries use "military" equipment (such as long guns and armored personnel carriers; usually military surplus resources), skills (such as battlefield medicine and bomb disposal), and tactics (such as urban warfare and close-quarters combat) that are compatible with their purpose, often combining them with skills from other relevant fields such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Third Force (Ireland)
The Third Force was the name given to a number of attempts by Northern Irish politician Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), to create an Ulster loyalist 'defensive militia'. The best known example was the Third Force rallies on 1 April 1981. At a number of these rallies, large groups of men displayed what purported to be firearms certificates. Rallies were held on hillsides near Gortin, Newry, and Armagh. On 3 December 1981, Paisley said that the Third Force had between 15,000 and 20,000 members.CAIN Web Service - Abstracts on Organisations - 'T' At Gortin the (RUC) were attacked and two vehicles overturned. The group was est ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magherafelt District Council
Magherafelt District Council was a district council in County Londonderry in Northern Ireland. It was merged with Cookstown District Council and Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council on 1 April 2015 under local government reorganisation in Northern Ireland becoming Mid-Ulster District Council. The council headquarters were in Magherafelt. The Council area stretched from Lough Neagh and the River Bann in the east into the Sperrin Mountains in the west and was divided by the Moyola River. It covered an area of and had a population of over 45,000. Local towns in the area included Bellaghy, birthplace of poet Seamus Heaney in 1939. The council was composed of 16 elected representatives. Local elections were held every four years on a proportional representation system. At its last election, in May 2011, those elected were from the following political parties: 9 Sinn Féin, 3 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 2 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and 2 Ulster Unionist Part ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Presbyterian Church Of Ulster
:''Distinct from Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland and Free Church of Scotland (post 1900)'' The Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster ( ga, Eaglais Phreispitéireach Saor Uladh) is a Calvinist denomination founded by Ian Paisley in 1951. Doctrinally, the church describes itself as fundamentalist, evangelical, and separatist, and is part of the reformed fundamentalist movement. Most of its members live in Northern Ireland, where the church is headquartered, and in County Donegal. The church has additional congregations in the Republic of Ireland, Great Britain and Australia, and a sister denomination in North America, the Free Presbyterian Church of North America, which has congregations in Canada and the United States. It also has a sister denomination in Nepal which was formed from the Nepal mission to the Unreached in November 2013. John Armstrong was Deputy Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church, and became Moderator in 2020, with Colin Mercer from Omagh as Deputy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert McCartney (Northern Irish Politician)
Robert Law McCartney, KC (born 24 April 1936) is a Northern Irish barrister and Unionist politician who was the founder and leader of the UK Unionist Party (UKUP) from 1995 to 2008. He was initially a member of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) but was expelled in June 1987 when he refused to withdraw from the general election of that year. He stood against the incumbent Popular Unionist Party MP Sir James Kilfedder in North Down as a "Real Unionist" but failed to win the seat. In the 1995 by-election in North Down after the death of Kilfedder he was elected as a "UK Unionist" defeating the Ulster Unionist Party candidate. He subsequently established the United Kingdom Unionist Party to contest elections to the Northern Ireland Forum and the related talks which started in 1996. The other party representatives to the Forum were Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien and Cedric Wilson, a former low-level DUP member in the 1980s. McCartney retained his Westminster seat in the 1997 election. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Trimble
William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, (15 October 1944 – 25 July 2022) was a British politician who was the first First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2002, and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1995 to 2005. He was also Member of Parliament (MP) for Upper Bann from 1990 to 2005 and Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Upper Bann from 1998 to 2007. Trimble began his career teaching law at The Queen's University of Belfast in the 1970s, during which time he began to get involved with the paramilitary-linked Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party (VPUP). He was elected to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention in 1975, and joined the UUP in 1978 after the VPUP disbanded. Remaining at Queen's University, he continued his academic career until being elected as the MP for Upper Bann in 1990. In 1995 he was unexpectedly elected as the leader of the UUP. He was instrumental in the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orange Order
The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots heritage. It also has lodges in England, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, as well as in parts of the Commonwealth of Nations, Togo and the United States. The Orange Order was founded by Ulster Protestants in County Armagh in 1795, during a period of Protestant–Catholic sectarian conflict, as a fraternity sworn to maintain the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. It is headed by the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, established in 1798. Its name is a tribute to the Dutch-born Protestant king William of Orange, who defeated Catholic king James II in the Williamite–Jacobite War (16881691). The order is best known for its yearly marches, the biggest of which are held on or around 12 July (The Twelfth), a public holiday in Northern Ireland. The Orange O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
