Dinah McNabb (died December 1988) was a unionist

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. Born in

Lurgan Lurgan () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, near the southern shore of Lough Neagh. Lurgan is about south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin railway line. It had a population ...

, McNabb studied at

Queen's University, Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

. She was elected to

Armagh County Council Armagh County Council was the authority responsible for local government in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. History Armagh County Council was formed under orders issued in accordance with the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 which came into e ...

for the

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 movem ...

, and was then elected at the

1945 Northern Ireland general election The 1945 Northern Ireland general election was held on 14 June 1945. The election saw significant losses for the Ulster Unionist Party, though they retained their majority. Mirroring the result across the rest of the UK in the 1945 UK general ...

in North Armagh, serving until her retirement in 1969. McNabb was a strong supporter of the

Lord's Day Observance Society Day One Christian Ministries, formerly known as the Lord's Day Observance Society (LDOS), is a Christian organisation based in the United Kingdom that lobbies for no work on Sunday, the day that many Christians celebrate as the Sabbath, a day of r ...

and throughout the 1940s campaigned against

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on Sundays, particularly in her home town of Lurgan. McNabb was a bitter opponent of the development of the

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Craigavon Craigavon may refer to: * Craigavon, County Armagh, a planned town in Northern Ireland ** Craigavon Borough Council, 1972–2015 local government area centred on the planned town * Viscount Craigavon, title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom ** ...

in the area she represented, and was in particular concerned that compensation payments to farmers took no account of their attachment to the land. In February 1966, she gave a thirty-minute speech attacking the project, which culminated in her resignation from the government. She lent support to other projects, and led calls for the construction of a bridge or tunnel to connect Northern Ireland with

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."Private member's motion discusses merits of cross-channel tunnel", ''

Belfast Newsletter The ''News Letter'' is one of Northern Ireland's main daily newspapers, published from Monday to Saturday. It is the world's oldest English-language general daily newspaper still in publication, having first been printed in 1737. The newspape ...

'', 23 May 1966 McNabb also served as the first Chairman of the 1966 Committee of backbenchers, from its establishment until 1968, and was the President of the Federation of

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of Great Britain and Ireland.

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