Joe Gaston (1926 or 1927 – 15 March 2018) was a Unionist politician in Northern Ireland. Gaston worked as a farmer and served part-time in the

Ulster Defence Regiment The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) was an infantry regiment of the British Army established in 1970, with a comparatively short existence ending in 1992. Raised through public appeal, newspaper and television advertisements,Potter p25 their offi ...

.Suzanne Breen,
The forgotten victims of the Troubles
, ''

Sunday Tribune The ''Sunday Tribune'' was an Irish Sunday broadsheet newspaper published by Tribune Newspapers plc. It was edited in its final years by Nóirín Hegarty, who changed both the tone and the physical format of the newspaper from broadsheet to tab ...

'', May 2006 In 1973, he was elected to Ballymoney Borough Council as a non-party candidate. He was re-elected in 1977, 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 ...

(UUP). In December 1977, Gaston's right leg was removed by a

bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the Exothermic process, exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-t ...

planted in his

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...

by the

Provisional Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reun ...

. Gaston was elected at the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly election in North Antrim. In 1985, he served as Deputy

Mayor of Ballymoney Ballymoney was a local government district with borough status in Northern Ireland. It was headquartered in Ballymoney. Other towns in the borough included Dervock, Dunloy, Cloughmills and Rasharkin. The borough had a population of 31,224 acco ...

, then as Mayor from 1986–87 and 1990–1993. At the 1992 general election, Gaston contested

Ian Paisley Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, (6 April 1926 – 12 September 2014) was a Northern Irish loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and First ...

's North Antrim seat, taking second place with 18.1% of the votes cast. In 1996, he was elected to the

Northern Ireland Forum The Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue was a body set up in 1996 as part of a process of negotiations that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The forum was elected, with five members being elected for each Westmin ...

, again in North Antrim, and served his final term as Mayor of Ballymoney. Gaston lost his council seat to Sinn Féin's Daithi McKay in 2005.Ballymoney Borough Council Elections 1993–2005
Northern Ireland Elections

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaston, Joe 1920s births 2018 deaths Mayors of places in Northern Ireland Members of Ballymoney Borough Council Members of the Northern Ireland Forum Northern Ireland MPAs 1982–1986 Farmers from Northern Ireland Ulster Unionist Party councillors Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers British amputees