August 1981 Fermanagh And South Tyrone By-election
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August 1981 Fermanagh And South Tyrone By-election
The August 1981 Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election was the second by-election in the same year, held in Fermanagh and South Tyrone on 20 August 1981. It was seen by many as a rerun of the earlier contest in April. The by-election was caused by the death of the IRA hunger striker and MP Bobby Sands. Background of the constituency The constituency, based on the districts of Fermanagh and Dungannon, was created in 1950 and had seen a series of closely fought elections between unionist and Irish nationalist candidates, with several elections being won due to the absence of competing candidates on one side or the other. The April by-election was a straight contest between Sands, standing as " Anti-H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner" and the former Ulster Unionist Party MP and leader Harry West, with no other candidates standing. Sands won with a majority of 1446 (with 3280 spoilt ballot papers). Candidates in the 1981 by-election Following Sands' victory and death s ...
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By-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumbent dying or resigning, or when the incumbent becomes ineligible to continue in office (because of a recall, election or appointment to a prohibited dual mandate, criminal conviction, or failure to maintain a minimum attendance), or when an election is invalidated by voting irregularities. In some cases a vacancy may be filled without a by-election or the office may be left vacant. Origins The procedure for filling a vacant seat in the House of Commons of England was developed during the Reformation Parliament of the 16th century by Thomas Cromwell; previously a seat had remained empty upon the death of a member. Cromwell de ...
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Anti-H-Block Proxy Political Prisoner
Anti H-Block was the political label used in 1981 by supporters of the Irish republican hunger strike who were standing for election in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. "H-Block" was a metonym for the Maze Prison, within whose H-shaped blocks the hunger strike was taking place. Bobby Sands, the first of these hunger strikers, was nominated in the Westminster April 1981 by-election in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. After his victory and death, the Representation of the People Act was passed to prevent convicted prisoners serving sentences of more than one year from standing for Parliament in the United Kingdom, so Owen Carron, Sands' agent, stood as an "Anti-H-Block Proxy Political Prisoner" and won the seat in the subsequent by-election in August. In the Republic of Ireland's general election in June 1981 twelve candidates ran under the Anti H-Block banner, nine of whom were prisoners. Kieran Doherty and Paddy Agnew won seats in Cavan–Monaghan and Louth re ...
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1981 Elections In The United Kingdom
Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensive, gaining control of most of Morazán and Chalatenango departments. * January 15 – Pope John Paul II receives a delegation led by Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa at the Vatican. * January 20 – Iran releases the 52 Americans held for 444 days, minutes after Ronald Reagan is sworn in as the 40th President of the United States, ending the Iran hostage crisis. * January 21 – The first DeLorean automobile, a stainless steel sports car with gull-wing doors, rolls off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. * January 24 – An earthquake of magnitude in Sichuan, China, kills 150 people. Japan suffers a less serious earthquake on the same day. * January 25 – In South Africa the largest part of the town Laingsburg ...
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By-elections To The Parliament Of The United Kingdom In County Tyrone Constituencies
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumbent dying or resigning, or when the incumbent becomes ineligible to continue in office (because of a recall, election or appointment to a prohibited dual mandate, criminal conviction, or failure to maintain a minimum attendance), or when an election is invalidated by voting irregularities. In some cases a vacancy may be filled without a by-election or the office may be left vacant. Origins The procedure for filling a vacant seat in the House of Commons of England was developed during the Reformation Parliament of the 16th century by Thomas Cromwell; previously a seat had remained empty upon the death of a member. Cromwell devi ...
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By-elections To The Parliament Of The United Kingdom In County Fermanagh Constituencies
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumbent dying or resigning, or when the incumbent becomes ineligible to continue in office (because of a recall, election or appointment to a prohibited dual mandate, criminal conviction, or failure to maintain a minimum attendance), or when an election is invalidated by voting irregularities. In some cases a vacancy may be filled without a by-election or the office may be left vacant. Origins The procedure for filling a vacant seat in the House of Commons of England was developed during the Reformation Parliament of the 16th century by Thomas Cromwell; previously a seat had remained empty upon the death of a member. Cromwell devi ...
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Official IRA
The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA (OIRA; ) was an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a "workers' republic" encompassing all of Ireland. It emerged in December 1969, shortly after the beginning of the Troubles, when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) split into two factions. The other was the Provisional IRA. Each continued to call itself simply "the IRA" and rejected the other's legitimacy. Unlike the "Provisionals", the "Officials" did not think that Ireland could be unified until the Protestant majority and Catholic minority of Northern Ireland were at peace with each other. The Officials were Marxist-Leninists and worked to form a united front with other Irish communist groups, named the Irish National Liberation Front (NLF). The Officials were called the NLF by the Provisionals and "stickies" by nationalists in Belfast (apparently in reference to members who would glue Easter lil ...
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Workers' Party Of Ireland
The Workers' Party ( ga, Páirtí na nOibrithe) is a Marxist–Leninist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It arose as the original Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, but took its current form in 1970 following a division within the party, in which it was the larger faction. This majority group continued under the same leadership as Sinn Féin (Gardiner Place) or Official Sinn Féin. The party name was changed to Sinn Féin – The Workers' Party in 1977 and then to the Workers' Party in 1982. (The breakaway group became known as "Sinn Féin (Kevin Street)" or "Provisional Sinn Féin", giving rise to the contemporary party known as Sinn Féin). Throughout its history, the party has been closely associated with the Official Irish Republican Army. Notable organisations that derived from it include Democratic Left and the Irish Republican Socialist Party. Name In the early to mid-1970s, Official Sinn Féin was so ...
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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 ...
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Seamus Close
Seamus Anthony Close OBE (12 August 1947 – 7 May 2019) was a Northern Irish politician, member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Lagan Valley and a deputy leader of the Alliance Party. In August 1981, he was the Alliance candidate for the second Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election. The following year under the redistribution and expansion of Northern Ireland's constituencies his local political base became part of the new Lagan Valley constituency which he has contested in the Alliance interest in all elections since 1983 apart from the 1986 by-election called in protest against the Anglo-Irish Agreement when the local Alliance branch declined to contest the seat as they believed the by-election was a political stunt. Close also held several positions in the Alliance, including serving as Chair between 1981 and 1982 and as Deputy Leader from 1991 until 2001. He was often a member of the key Alliance delegations in successive talks about the future of the province, c ...
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Orange Institution
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 ...
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