Belfast Victoria (UK Parliament constituency)

Last updated

Belfast Victoria
Former borough constituency
for the House of Commons
1918–1922
Seats1
Created from Belfast East
Replaced by Belfast East

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.

Contents

Boundaries and boundary changes

The constituency was created by the Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918 from an area which had been in the Belfast East constituency. It comprised the north-eastern half of East Belfast, and contained the Dock and Victoria wards of Belfast City Council. [1]

It was in use at the 1918 general election only, and under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 its area was again part of the Belfast East constituency, with effect from the 1922 general election.

Politics

The constituency was strongly unionist, but with significant labour support. The unionists ran a candidate from the Ulster Unionist Labour Association, a group affiliated with the Unionist Party, as a Labour Unionist. He easily won the seat. A Belfast Labour Party candidate was in second place. Sinn Féin demonstrated republican weakness in the seat by receiving only 539 votes, in the 1918 election.

First Dáil

After the 1918 election, Sinn Féin invited all those elected for constituencies in Ireland to sit as TDs in Dáil Éireann rather than in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. [2] All those elected for Irish constituencies were included in the roll of the Dáil but only those elected for Sinn Féin sat in the First Dáil. [3] In May 1921, the Dáil passed a resolution declaring that elections to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland would be used as the election for the Second Dáil and that the First Dáil would be dissolved on the assembly of the new body. [4] The area of Belfast Victoria would then have been represented in the Dáil by the four-seat constituency of Belfast East, which also returned no representatives for Sinn Féin.

Members of Parliament

ElectionMemberParty
1918 Thompson Donald Labour Unionist
1922 constituency abolished

Election

1918 general election: Belfast Victoria
PartyCandidateVotes%±%
Labour Unionist Thompson Donald 9,309 69.90
Belfast Labour Robert Waugh3,46926.05
Sinn Féin Winifred Carney 5394.05
Majority 5,84043.85
Turnout 19,49468.31
Labour Unionist win (new seat)

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918, Second Schedule, Part I
  2. ↑ "The inaugural public meeting of Dáil Éireann". Dáil 100. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  3. ↑ "3. AN ROLLA". Houses of the Oireachtas. 21 January 1919. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
  4. ↑ "Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 10 May 1921 - PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT. - ELECTIONS". Houses of the Oireachtas. Retrieved 23 February 2019.

References

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