| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
All 13 seats in Northern Ireland to the House of Commons | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
The 1922 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland was held on 15 November 1922. There were ten constituencies, seven single-seat constituencies with elected by FPTP and three two-seat constituencies with MPs elected by bloc voting. Only two of the constituencies had contested elections.
It was the first election held after the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which had reduced the number of seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in the region designated as Northern Ireland from 30 to 13. It was also the first election held after the approval of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, whereby the Irish Free State separated from the United Kingdom with effect from 6 December 1922, a few weeks after the election was held.
The focus of politics in Northern Ireland had shifted to the Parliament of Northern Ireland, after the first general election to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland in May 1921. The party leaders of the three parties had been elected to seats in this parliament rather than at Westminster.
Voting only took place for 3 of 13 seats. The other 10 MPs (all Ulster Unionists) were unopposed.
1922 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland [1] [2] | |||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Party | Candidates | Votes | |||||||||||||
Stood | Elected | Gained | Unseated | Net | % of total | % | No. | Net % | |||||||
UUP | 13 | 11 [a] | N/A | N/A | N/A | 84.6 | 57.2 | 69,357 | +1.0 | ||||||
Nationalist | 2 | 2 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 15.4 | 34.7 | 42,026 | +23.6 | ||||||
Independent | 1 | 0 | N/A | N/A | N/A | — | 8.1 | 9,861 | +8.0 | ||||||
Sinn Féin | 0 | 0 | N/A | N/A | N/A | — | — | — | -19.0 | ||||||
Labour Unionist | 0 | 0 | N/A | N/A | N/A | — | — | — | -7.6 |
Votes in constituencies using the bloc voting system are counted as 0.5 each, as each voter had one vote per seat.
The Ulster Unionist Party was dominant in this election, and won the most seats at every election in Northern Ireland until the 2005 general election. They took the Conservative Party whip in the House of Commons.
The Nationalist Party was a successor to the Irish Parliamentary Party which had suffered a large defeat in the previous election, now continuing in the area of Northern Ireland.
In the previous election, Sinn Féin had won three of the seats in this region. The Irish Free State had been in midst of the Irish Civil War from June 1922, which divided Sinn Féin into Pro-Treaty and Anti-Treaty factions (soon to become separate parties), and it did not contest this election to Westminster.
In the election as a whole, the Conservatives led by Bonar Law won an absolute majority of 344 of the 615 seats.
At the previous general election, the seats won in the area which would become Northern Ireland were:
Party | MPs | |
---|---|---|
Unionist | 20 | |
Nationalist | 4 | |
Sinn Féin | 3 | |
Labour Unionist | 3 |
The Sinn Féin members elected sat as TDs for the First Dáil, a revolutionary parliament for an Irish Republic.
The table below indicates the political career of each of those elected in 1918 after the 1922 general election:
Southern Ireland was the larger of the two parts of Ireland that were created when Ireland was partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It comprised 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland or about five-sixths of the area of the island, whilst the remaining six counties, which occupied most of Ulster in the north of the island, formed Northern Ireland. Southern Ireland included County Donegal, despite it being the largest county in Ulster and the most northerly county in all of Ireland.
The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore order during the Troubles, resulting in the introduction of direct rule. It was abolished under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.
The Irish component of the 1918 United Kingdom general election took place on 14 December 1918. It was the final United Kingdom general election to be held throughout Ireland, as the next election would happen following Irish independence. It is a key moment in modern Irish history, seeing the overwhelming defeat of the moderate nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), which had dominated the Irish political landscape since the 1880s, and a landslide victory for the radical Sinn Féin party. Sinn Féin had never previously stood in a general election, but had won six seats in by-elections in 1917–1918. The party had vowed in its manifesto to establish an independent Irish Republic. In Ulster, however, the Unionist Party was the most successful party.
Mid Ulster is a parliamentary constituency in the UK House of Commons. The current MP is Cathal Mallaghan, of Sinn Féin, who was first elected at the 2024 election.
East Antrim is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. It is currently represented by Sammy Wilson of the Democratic Unionist Party.
Belfast North is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is John Finucane.
Belfast South was a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons.
South Down is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Chris Hazzard of Sinn Féin.
The 1921 Irish elections took place in Ireland on 24 May 1921 to elect members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland. These legislatures had been established by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which granted Home Rule to a partitioned Ireland within the United Kingdom.
South Dublin, a division of County Dublin, was a county constituency in Ireland from 1885 to 1922. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, using the first past the post voting system.
Shankill, a division of the parliamentary borough of Belfast, was a UK parliamentary constituency in Northern Ireland. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1922, on the electoral system of first past the post.
Victoria, a division of Belfast, was a UK parliamentary constituency in Ireland. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1922, using the first past the post electoral system.
Mid Down was a UK parliamentary constituency in Ireland and after 1921 Northern Ireland. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the British House of Commons from 1918 to 1922, using the first past the post electoral system.
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was an Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to create two separate parliaments in Ireland: the Parliament of Northern Ireland and the Parliament of Southern Ireland. The Fifth Schedule to this act provided the constituencies for the House of Commons in these two separate parliaments. These same constituencies also replaced those provided in the Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918 for representation of Ireland in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom at Westminster. Sinn Féin used these constituencies to elect the Second Dáil (1921–22) and those constituencies in Southern Ireland were used to elect the Third Dáil (1922–23).
The 1986 Northern Ireland by-elections were fifteen by-elections held on 23 January 1986, to fill vacancies in the Parliament of the United Kingdom caused by the resignation in December 1985 of all sitting Unionist Members of Parliament (MPs). The MPs, from the Ulster Unionist Party, Democratic Unionist Party and Ulster Popular Unionist Party, did this to highlight their opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, signed the month before.
The 1924 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland was held on 29 October as part of the wider general election in the United Kingdom. There were ten constituencies, seven single-seat constituencies with elected by FPTP and three two-seat constituencies with MPs elected by bloc voting.
The 1955 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland was held on 26 May as part of the wider general election with 12 MPs elected in single-seat constituencies using first-past-the-post.
The 1959 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland was held on 8 October with 12 MPs elected in single-seat constituencies using first-past-the-post as part of the wider general election in the United Kingdom.