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 movement. Following the partition of Ireland,it was the governing party of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. It was supported by most unionist voters throughout the conflict known as the Troubles,during which time it was often referred to as the Official Unionist Party (OUP).
Unionism is a political tradition on the island of Ireland that favours political union with Great Britain and professes loyalty to the British Crown and constitution. As the overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority,following Catholic Emancipation (1829) unionism mobilised to keep Ireland part of the United Kingdom and to defeat the efforts of Irish nationalists to restore a separate Irish parliament. Since Partition (1921),as Ulster Unionism its goal has been to maintain Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom and to resist a transfer of sovereignty to an all-Ireland republic. Within the framework of a 1998 peace settlement,unionists in Northern Ireland have had to accommodate Irish nationalists in a devolved government,while continuing to rely on the link with Britain to secure their cultural and economic interests.
The Liverpool Protestant Party (LPP) was a minor political party operating in the city of Liverpool in northwest England.
Belfast South is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Claire Hanna of the SDLP.
The Ulster Unionist Labour Association (UULA) was an association of trade unionists founded by Edward Carson in June 1918,aligned with the Ulster Unionists in Ireland. Members were known as Labour Unionists. In Britain,1918 and 1919 were marked by intense class conflict. This phenomenon spread to Ireland,the whole of which was part of the United Kingdom at the time. This period also saw a large increase in trade union membership and a series of strikes. These union activities raised fears in a section of the Ulster Unionist leadership,principally Edward Carson and R. Dawson Bates. Carson at this time was president of the British Empire Union,and had been predisposed to amplify the danger of a Bolshevik outbreak in Britain.
The Volunteer Political Party (VPP) was a loyalist political party launched in Northern Ireland on 22 June 1974 by members of the then recently legalised Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The Chairman was Ken Gibson from East Belfast,an ex-internee and UVF chief of staff at the time. The success of the Ulster Workers Council Strike had shown some UVF leaders the political power they held and they sought to develop this potential further. The UVF had been banned by the Government of Northern Ireland in 1966,but was legalised at the same time as Sinn Féin by Labour Secretary of State Merlyn Rees in April 1974 in order to encourage a political path for Loyalist and republican paramilitary groups.
The Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA),also known as the Irish Unionist Party,Irish Unionists or simply the Unionists,was a unionist political party founded in Ireland in 1891 from a merger of the Irish Conservative Party and the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union to oppose plans for home rule for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The party was led for much of its existence by Colonel Edward James Saunderson and later by William St John Brodrick,Earl of Midleton. In total,eighty-six members of the House of Lords affiliated themselves with the Irish Unionist Alliance,although its broader membership among Irish voters was relatively small.
Norman Porter was a loyalist politician in Northern Ireland.
The Independent Loyal Orange Institution is an offshoot of the Orange Institution,a Protestant fraternal organisation based in Northern Ireland. Initially pro-labour and supportive of tenant rights and land reform,over time it moved to a more conservative,unionist position.
George Seawright was a Scottish-born unionist politician in Northern Ireland and loyalist paramilitary in the Ulster Volunteer Force. He was assassinated by the Irish People's Liberation Organisation in 1987.
The All-for-Ireland League (AFIL) was an Irish,Munster-based political party (1909–1918). Founded by William O'Brien MP,it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland. The AFIL established itself as a separate non-sectarian party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,binding a group of independent nationalists MPs to pursue a broader concept of Irish nationalism,a consensus of political brotherhood and reconciliation among all Irishmen,primarily to win Unionist consent to an All-Ireland parliamentary settlement.
The Loyal Orange Institution,commonly known as the Orange Order,is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants,particularly those of Ulster Scots heritage. It also has lodges in England,Scotland and the Republic of Ireland,as well as in parts of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United States. The Orange Order was founded by Ulster Protestants in County Armagh in 1795,during a period of Protestant–Catholic sectarian conflict,as a fraternity sworn to maintain the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. It is headed by the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland,established in 1798. Its name is a tribute to the Dutch-born Protestant king William of Orange,who defeated Catholic king James II in the Williamite–Jacobite War (1688–1691). The order is best known for its yearly marches,the biggest of which are held on or around 12 July,a public holiday in Northern Ireland.
Independent Unionist has been a label sometimes used by candidates in elections in the United Kingdom,indicating a support for British unionism.
Ulster Protestant Action (UPA) was an Ulster loyalist political party and Protestant fundamentalist vigilante group in Northern Ireland that was founded in 1956 and reformed as the Protestant Unionist Party in 1966.
William McMullen was an Irish trade unionist and politician. A member of the Labour movement,McMullen primary work was a trade unionist,but he was also a successful politician who secured office in the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Despite coming from a Presbyterian family,McMullen was also an avowed Irish republican,bitterly opposing the partition of Ireland in the 1920s and joining the Republican Congress in the 1930s. In the 1940s McMullen ascended to the leadership of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union and in the 1950s,he became a member of the Irish senate.
William Johnston was a unionist politician in Ireland,a Member of Parliament for Belfast,distinguished by his independent working-class following and commitment to reform. He first entered the Westminster Parliament as an Independent Conservative in 1868,celebrated for having broken a standing ban on Orange Order processions and as the nominee of an association of "Protestant Workers". At Westminster,Johnston supported the secret ballot;reforms accommodating of trade unions and strike action;land reform;and woman's suffrage. He was succeeded in 1902 as the MP for South Belfast,by Thomas Sloan,similarly supported by loyalist workers in opposition to the official unionist candidates favoured by their employers.
The Belfast Protestant Association was a populist evangelical political movement in the early 20th-century.
The Belfast Dock strike or Belfast lockout took place in Belfast,Ireland from 26 April to 28 August 1907. The strike was called by Liverpool-born trade union leader James Larkin who had successfully organised the dock workers to join the National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL). The dockers,both Protestant and Catholic,had gone on strike after their demand for union recognition was refused. They were soon joined by carters,shipyard workers,sailors,firemen,boilermakers,coal heavers,transport workers,and women from the city's largest tobacco factory. Most of the dock labourers were employed by powerful tobacco magnate Thomas Gallaher,chairman of the Belfast Steamship Company and owner of Gallaher's Tobacco Factory.
The 1902 Belfast South by-election was held on 18 August 1902 after the death of the Irish Unionist Party MP William Johnston. It was won by the Independent Unionist candidate Thomas Henry Sloan.
Robert Lindsay Crawford (1868–1945) was an Irish Protestant politician and journalist who shifted in his loyalties from Unionism and the Orange Order to the Irish Free State. He was a co-founder of the Independent Orange Order through which he hoped to promote Irish reconciliation and democracy. Later he became a committed Irish nationalist mobilizing support in Canada for Irish self-determination and serving the new Irish state as its trade representative and consul in New York City.
