1950–1974: The Boroughs of Ballymena and Larne, the Urban Districts of Ballycastle, Ballymoney, and Portrush, the Rural Districts of Ballycastle, Ballymena, and Ballymoney, and in the Rural District of Larne the electoral divisions of Ardclinis, Ballycor, Carncastle, Glenarm North, Glenarm South, Glencloy, and Kilwaughter.
1974–1983: The Boroughs of Ballymena, Carrickfergus, and Larne, the Urban Districts of Ballycastle, Ballymoney, Portrush, and Whitehead, the Rural Districts of Ballycastle, Ballymena, and Ballymoney, and in the Rural District of Larne the electoral divisions of Ardclinis, Ballycor, Carncastle, Eden, Glenarm North, Glenarm South, Glencloy, Glynn, Islandmagee North, Islandmagee South, Kilwaughter, Middle Division, Raloo, and Templecorran.
1983–2010: The District of Ballymena, the District of Ballymoney, and the District of Moyle.
2010–present: The District of Ballymena, the District of Ballymoney, and the District of Moyle wards of Armoy, Ballylough, Bushmills, Bonamargy and Rathlin, Carnmoon, Dalriada, Dunseverick, Glenshesk, Glentaisie, Kinbane, Knocklayd, Moss Side, and Moyarget.
North Antrim has always been a county constituency comprising the northern part of County Antrim in the north-east of Northern Ireland. It has the sea to the north and east and parts of the border with County Londonderry to the west – the County Antrim town of Portrush is included in the East Londonderry constituency (although it was in this seat until 1983).
North Antrim constituency, 1885 – 1922
From 1885, this constituency was one of four county divisions carved out of the former constituency of Antrim. It comprised the baronies of Cary, Dunluce Lower, Dunluce Upper and Kilconway and returned one Member of Parliament from 1885 until 1922, when it was merged into a new Antrim constituency.
North Antrim was re-created in 1950 when the old Antrim two MP constituency was abolished as part of the final move to single member seats.
The Boundary Commission initially proposed alterations for the boundaries of North Antrim prior to the 2010 general election. It was proposed to transfer Ballycastle and the Glens, including Rathlin Island, in Moyle to East Antrim and rename that seat Antrim Coast & Glens. However that proposal raised many questions, with some arguing that the Glens have no natural ties to Jordanstown. Following consultation and revision, the constituency alterations were passed through the Northern Ireland Parliamentary Constituencies Order.
History
North Antrim is an overwhelmingly unionist seat. It first existed from 1885 to 1922. From 1886 to 1974 the Conservative and Unionist members of the United Kingdom House of Commons formed a single Parliamentary party.
Unusually for Ireland, the Liberal Party retained significant strength in this constituency after the split over Home Rule in 1886. The Irish Parliamentary Party never contested the seat.
In 1906 the constituency was won by a Russellite Unionist, at least somewhat linked to the Liberal Party. Although the Unionists regained the seat when the sitting MP retired, the constituency was one of very few Unionist/Liberal marginals in Ireland at both 1910 elections.
A victory for the Unionist candidate in 1918 by 9,621 votes to Sinn Féin's 2,673 votes demonstrated the strength of the unionist support in the area.
In 1922, the constituency reverted to being part of the two member Antrim seat (as it had been before 1885). North Antrim was re-created in 1950 as a larger seat than it had been in its first incarnation. County Antrim, excluding the parts in the Belfast constituencies, was split into two divisions instead of four as previously. The 1950 North Antrim was comparable to the North and Mid Antrim divisions which had existed from 1885 to 1922.
Since 1950 the Westminster elections have been relatively uncompetitive. In 1951, it was one of the last four seats to be uncontested in a UK general election. More recently, one man repeatedly won by a large majority: Ian Paisley was first elected as a Protestant Unionist Party candidate in the 1970 general election after narrowly defeating sitting member Henry Clark. The following year that party changed to the Democratic Unionist Party and Paisley easily held the seat for 40 years until his retirement in 2010. This is the longest continuous period for which the current holding party has held any Northern Irish seat. In elections at all levels, the DUP have frequently had their highest share of the vote in North Antrim and have rarely been seriously challenged.
In March 2010 Ian Paisley announced that he would step down at the 2010 general election. His son Ian Paisley Jr was selected by the DUP to replace him as candidate.[1] Former DUP MEP Jim Allister announced that he would contest the constituency for the Traditional Unionist Voice.[2] Paisley Jr was elected with a significantly reduced majority.
In July 2018 North Antrim was the site of the first recall petition UK held in the under the provisions of the Recall of MPs Act 2015. This petition was launched following a critical report into Paisley Jr's conduct in respect to an undeclared trip to Sri Lanka, and Paisley Jr subsequently being suspended from the Commons for 30days. The petition was signed by 9.4% of the electorate, short of the 10% required to unseat Paisley Jr and trigger a by-election.
North Antrim has had comparatively few MPs in its lifetime compared to other parliamentary constituencies. Sir Hugh O'Neill had sat for one of the predecessor seats of Mid Antrim between 1915 and 1922 and Antrim between 1922 until 1950, making this one of the few seats where four individuals between them represented the seat continuously over a period of ninety years.
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley Jr is a British unionist politician. A member of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), he has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Antrim since the 2010 general election, and was previously a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for North Antrim from 1998 to 2010. Paisley is the DUP's Spokesperson for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports. He is a son of the DUP's founder Ian Paisley.
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 according to the 2011 census.
Moyle District Council was a local council in County Antrim in the northeast of Northern Ireland. It merged with Ballymoney Borough Council, Coleraine Borough Council and Limavady Borough Council in May 2015 under local government reorganisation to become Causeway Coast and Glens District Council.
East Londonderry is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Gregory Campbell of the DUP.
East Antrim is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Sammy Wilson of the DUP.
South Antrim is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Paul Girvan of the Democratic Unionist Party.
Belfast North is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is John Finucane of Sinn Féin.
Upper Bann is a parliamentary constituency in Northern Ireland, which is represented in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Carla Lockhart of the DUP.
Lagan Valley is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) until his resignation in March 2024. The constituency has always returned unionist MPs, but is considered competitive between the DUP and the Alliance Party for the forthcoming 2024 election.
Strangford is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Jim Shannon of the DUP.
North Down is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Stephen Farry of the Alliance Party. Farry was elected to the position in the 2019 general election, replacing the incumbent Sylvia Hermon. Hermon had held the position since being elected to it in the 2001 general election, but chose not to contest in 2019.
Ballymoney is a town and civil parish in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is within the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council area. The civil parish of Ballymoney is situated in the historic baronies of Dunluce Upper and Kilconway in County Antrim, as well as the barony of North East Liberties of Coleraine in County Londonderry. It had a population of 11,048 people at the 2021 Census.
Larne Borough Council was a Local Council in County Antrim in Northern Ireland. It merged with Ballymena Borough Council and Carrickfergus Borough Council in May 2015 under the reorganisation of local government in Northern Ireland to become Mid and East Antrim Borough Council.
North Antrim was a constituency of the Northern Ireland House of Commons.
Mid Antrim was a UK Parliament constituency in Ireland and after 1921 Northern Ireland which returned one Member of Parliament from 1885 to 1922, using the first past the post electoral system.
Robert Mervyn Storey, usually known as Mervyn Storey, is a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician, serving as a Causeway Coast and Glens Councillor for the Ballymoney DEA since 2022. Storey previously served in the Northern Ireland Executive, where he was Minister for Social Development from 2014 to 2016, and then Minister for Finance between January and March 2016. He was a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for North Antrim from 2003 to 2022.
Robert Coulter was a Northern Irish unionist politician who was a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for a North Antrim, as a member of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), from 1998 to 2011. He was a prominent proponent of unionism, and was the second oldest MLA after the Rev. Ian Paisley at the time of his retirement in 2011.
Mid Antrim was a constituency of the Northern Ireland House of Commons.
The Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. In common with all other Northern Irish unionist parties, the TUV's political programme has as its sine qua non the preservation of Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom. A founding precept of the party is that "nothing which is morally wrong can be politically right".
The North Antrim recall petition was a 2018 recall petition for the United Kingdom parliamentary constituency of North Antrim, in Northern Ireland, the first since the procedure was introduced by the Recall of MPs Act 2015. It was triggered when North Antrim's MP, Ian Paisley Jr, was suspended from the House of Commons for 30 days for advocating for Sri Lanka after failing to declare that its government had paid for his visits there. In the prescribed six-week period, 9.4% of the registered electorate signed the petition, short of the 10% required to unseat Paisley and force a by-election.
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