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12 seats in Northern Ireland of the 635 seats in the House of Commons | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1979 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland was held on 3 May with 12 MPs elected in single-seat constituencies using first-past-the-post as part of the wider general election in the United Kingdom.
The election was after Labour Party prime minister James Callaghan lost a vote of confidence by 311 votes to 310. The election was won by the Conservative Party led by Margaret Thatcher, and began a period of 18-year government by the party.
Ulster Unionist leader Harry West failed to win a seat for the second time, and would resign later that year after failing to win a seat at the first European Parliament election. The Democratic Unionist Party increased its representation, and the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party had disbanded.
Frank Maguire was re-elected as an Independent Nationalist, beating the leaders of both the UUP and the new United Ulster Unionist Party, as well as Austin Currie, a member of the SDLP standing without the support of the party. Maguire's death on 5 March 1981 led by a by-election won by Bobby Sands, an IRA prisoner who died later that year as a result of a hunger strike. The Representation of the People Act 1981 disqualified prisoners detained for more than a year from membership of the House of Commons, so the resulting by-election was contested by Sands's election agent Owen Carron, rather than by another prisoner on hunger strike.
| Party | MPs | Votes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Change | No. | % | Change | ||
| UUP | 5 |  1 | 254,578 | 36.6% |  0.1 | |
| DUP | 3 | 2 | 70,795 | 10.2% | 1.7 | |
| SDLP | 1 | 1 | 126,235 | 18.2% | 4.2 | |
| UUUP | 1 | New | 39,856 | 5.7% | 5.7 | |
| Ind. Unionist | 1 | 1 | 36,989 | 5.3% | 4.6 | |
| Independent Nationalist | 1 |  | 22,398 | 3.2% | 1.5 | |
| Alliance | 0 | | 82,892 | 11.9% | 5.5 | |
| Irish Independence | 0 | New | 23,086 | 3.3% | 3.3 | |
| Republican Clubs | 0 | | 12,098 | 1.7% | 1.3 | |
| Independent SDLP | 0 | | 10,795 | 1.6% | 1.6 | |
| Unionist Party NI | 0 | | 8,021 | 1.2% | 1.9 | |
| NI Labour | 0 | | 4,411 | 0.6% | 1.0 | |
| United Labour | 0 | | 1,895 | 0.3% | 0.3 | |
| Independent or other | 0 | | 1,578 | 0.2% | 0.3 | |
| Total | 12 | | 695,627 | 100 | | |
| Constituency | Date | Incumbent | Party | Winner | Party | Cause | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fermanagh and South Tyrone | 9 April 1981 | Frank Maguire | Independent Nationalist | Bobby Sands | Anti H-Block | Death | ||
| Fermanagh and South Tyrone | 20 August 1981 | Bobby Sands | Anti H-Block | Owen Carron | Anti H-Block | Death from hunger strike | ||
| Belfast South | 4 March 1982 | Robert Bradford | UUP | Martin Smyth | UUP | Killed by the IRA | ||
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