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West Belfast (Assembly Constituency)
Belfast West (, Ulster Scots: ''Bilfawst Wast'') is a constituency in the Northern Ireland Assembly. It was first used for a Northern Ireland-only election in 1973, which elected the then Northern Ireland Assembly. It usually shares boundaries with the Belfast West UK Parliament constituency. However, the boundaries of the two constituencies were slightly different from 1973 to 1974, 1983 to 1986 and 2010 to 2011 (because the Assembly boundaries had not caught up with Parliamentary boundary changes) and from 1996 to 1997, when members of the Northern Ireland Forum had been elected from the newly drawn Parliamentary constituencies but the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected in 1992 under the 1983–95 constituency boundaries, was still in session. Members were then elected from the constituency to the 1975 Constitutional Convention, the 1982 Assembly, the 1996 Forum and then to the current Assembly from 1998. For further details of the history and boundaries of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Parliamentary Constituencies In Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is divided into 18 parliamentary constituencies: 4 borough constituencies in Belfast and 14 county constituencies elsewhere. Section 33 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 provides that the constituencies for the Northern Ireland Assembly are the same as the constituencies that are used for the United Kingdom Parliament. Parliamentary constituencies are not used for local government, which is instead carried out by 11 district councils; these often have different boundaries. Constituencies Each constituency returns one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons at Westminster and five Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) to the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont. Six MLAs were returned per constituency until the Assembly Members (Reduction of Numbers) Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 reduced the number to five, effective from the 2017 Assembly election. * Belfast East * Belfast North * Belfast South * Belfast West * East Antrim * East Lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belfast West (UK Parliament Constituency)
Belfast West is a parliamentary constituency (seat) in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. The current MP is Paul Maskey of Sinn Féin. In 2017, it ranked the most secure of Northern Ireland's 18 seats by percentage and/or numerical tally of its winning majority, followed by North Down and by North Antrim respectively. Boundaries 1885–1918: In the Borough of Belfast, Smithfield ward, that part of St. Anne's ward bounded on the north-west by a line drawn along the centre of Carrick Hill, that part of St. George's ward lying to the north of a line drawn along the centre of Grosvenor Street and west of a line drawn along the centre of Durham Street, and the townlands of Ballymagarry and Ballymurphy in the parish of Shankill. 1922–1974: The County Borough of Belfast wards of Court, Falls, St. Anne's, St. George's, Smithfield, and Woodvale. 1974–1983: The County Borough of Belfast wards of Court, Falls, St Anne's, St George's, Smithfield, and Woodvale, and the Rur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movement. Following the partition of Ireland, it was the governing party of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. It was supported by most unionist voters throughout the conflict known as the Troubles, during which time it was often referred to as the Official Unionist Party (OUP). Under David Trimble, the party helped negotiate the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which ended the conflict. Trimble served as the first First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2002. However, it was overtaken as the largest unionist party in 2003 by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). As of 2022 it is the fourth-largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, after the DUP, Sinn Féin, and the Alliance Party. The party has been unrepresented in Westmins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Laird, Baron Laird
John Dunn Laird, Baron Laird, , of Artigarvan (23 April 1944 – 10 July 2018) was a Northern Irish politician, life peer and former chairman of the cross-border Ulster-Scots Agency. In 2013 Laird allegedly offered to lobby for a firm against parliamentary rules. Consequently, he resigned from the Ulster Unionist Party. Career Whilst Chairman of the Ulster Young Unionist Council in 1970, Laird became the youngest member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, after winning the seat of Belfast Saint Anne's in a by-election caused by the death of his father, Dr Norman Laird OBE. He was expelled from the Ulster Unionist Parliamentary Party in January 1972 when he voted for a Democratic Unionist Party censure motion opposing a ban on certain processions planned for The Twelfth. He topped the poll in Belfast West in the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election opposed to the proposals of the former Prime Minister Brian Faulkner. He repeated this feat as an Ulster Unionist candidate ... [...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] |
Bob Cooper (politician)
Sir Robert George Cooper, CBE (24 June 1936 – 15 November 2004), popularly known as Sir Bob Cooper, was a politician and equal opportunities activist in Northern Ireland. Born and raised in the east of County Donegal in the north-west of Ulster, Cooper, a Presbyterian, attended Foyle College and then studied law at The Queen's University of Belfast, where he was the Chair of the Young Unionists. Despite his Protestant Unionist background, Cooper married a Catholic. In 1970, Cooper became a founder member of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, and at the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election, he was elected for West Belfast. He served as Minister for Manpower Services, a junior position in the Sunningdale Northern Ireland Executive. Soon after, he became deputy leader of the party, and in 1975 he was elected to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention. In 1976, Cooper left politics to take up an appointment as head of the Fair Employment Agency. In 1990, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Independent Unionist
Independent Unionist has been a label sometimes used by candidates in elections in the United Kingdom, indicating a support for British unionism (not to be confused with trade unionism). It is most popularly associated with candidates in elections for the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Such candidates supported the positions of Unionism in Northern Ireland but, for various reasons, could not reconcile to themselves to the Ulster Unionist Party or other groups. It was also used by Unionists in what became the Irish Free State, as they were unionists, but not in Ulster. The label was also used in Scotland, demonstrating an association with ideology of the Unionist Party, the predecessor to the modern Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. At the 1938 Northern Ireland general election Tommy Henderson and five defeated candidates stood for the Independent Unionist Association, which was distinct from other Independent Unionists. Notable users of the affiliation Northern I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Smyth
Hugh Smyth, OBE (1941 – 12 May 2014) was a Northern Irish politician who was leader of the Progressive Unionist Party. He was a former Lord Mayor of Belfast as well as the longest serving member of Belfast City Council, having represented the Upper Shankill Road area since 1973. Smyth was awarded the Order of the British Empire in the 1996 New Year's Honours list. Emergence in politics Born in the Woodvale Road district of the Shankill Road area of Belfast, Smyth was one of nine children and was educated locally and worked as a metal bonder in the Short Brothers factory before entering full-time politics. Smyth first came to attention in the early 1970s when he served as a public spokesman for the Ulster Volunteer Force although he was not an active member of the organisation. His inspiration for politics was the struggle his father endured whilst working to support his family. Deeply opposed to what he described as 'Big House Unionism', he stated that at that time Belfast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desmond Gillespie
Desmond Gillespie (February 1912 – 22 May 1986) was an Irish nationalist politician. Born in Kilnaleck, County Cavan, Gillespie worked as a publican in Belfast before joining the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). He stood for Belfast City Council at the 1973 local elections, but was not elected. However, he fared better at the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election, where he was elected to represent Belfast West.West Belfast 1973–82 Northern Ireland Elections For the February 1974 UK general election, he moved to stand in B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Democratic And Labour Party
The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLAs) and two Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The SDLP party platform advocates Irish reunification and further devolution of powers while Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom. During the Troubles, the SDLP was the most popular Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland, but since the Provisional IRA ceasefire in 1994, it has lost ground to the republican party Sinn Féin, which in 2001 became the more popular of the two parties for the first time. Established during the Troubles, a significant difference between the two parties was the SDLP's rejection of violence, in contrast to Sinn Féin's then-support for (and organisational ties to) the Provisional IRA and physica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paddy Devlin
Patrick Joseph "Paddy" Devlin (8 March 1925 – 15 August 1999) was an Irish socialist, labour and civil rights activist and writer. He was a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), a former Stormont MP, and a member of the 1974 Power Sharing Executive. Described as a "relentless campaigner against sectarianism", Devlin had once been a member of the IRA but later renounced physical force republicanism to work at transcending sectarian differences through peaceful, socialist and nationalist political means. During the late 1960s he entered local politics in the Belfast City Council and went on to help found the SDLP in 1970 with John Hume, Gerry Fitt, Austin Currie and others. Early life Devlin was born in the Pound Loney in the Lower Falls in West Belfast on 8 March 1925 and lived in the city for almost all his life. His mother was a leading activist in Joe Devlin's (no relation) Nationalist Party machine in the Falls area and Devlin grew up in a h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Ireland Assembly, 1982
The Northern Ireland Assembly established in 1982 represented an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to restore the devolution to Northern Ireland which had been suspended 10 years previously. The Assembly was abolished in 1986. Origins The Assembly emerged as a result of initiatives by the then Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland, Humphrey Atkins and James Prior. The first step in this process was a white paper called The Government of Northern Ireland: A Working Paper for a Conference, published on 20 November 1979. This established a conference, attended the following year by the Democratic Unionist Party, the Alliance Party and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). (The UUP refused to become involved in protest at a decision to allow discussions on an Irish dimension, discussions which the DUP also boycotted.) Talks between the DUP, Alliance and SDLP took place between 7 January and 24 March 1980, but failed to reach agreement. In July 1980, the British Govern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
