1.
Parliament Buildings (Northern Ireland)
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Parliament Buildings, commonly known as Stormont because of its location in the Stormont Estate area of Belfast, is the seat of the Northern Ireland Assembly. It previously housed the defunct Parliament of Northern Ireland, the need for a separate parliament building for Northern Ireland emerged with the creation of the Northern Ireland Home Rule region within Ulster in the Government of Ireland Act 1920. In 1922, preparatory work on the site, east of Belfast. Alongside the parliament and Ministerial Building the site would have been host to the Northern Ireland High Court, the plans were scrapped following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and its knock-on effect on the economy of the United Kingdom. Instead, a smaller building, designed by Sir Arnold Thornely in the Greek classical style. It was built by Stewart & Partners and opened by Edward, Prince of Wales, Stormont Castle served as the official residence of the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and was the meeting place for the Northern Ireland cabinet. Another residence, Stormont House, served as the residence of the Speaker of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland. In the main hall, originally called the Central Hall but now known as the Great Hall and it was a gift from King George V and had originally hung in Windsor Castle, where it had been a gift from German Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Kaisers chandelier had been removed from Windsor and placed in storage during World War I and it was never hung in Windsor again. The painting The Entry of King William into Ireland, a gift from the Dutch Government to its Northern Ireland counterpart, was hung in the House of Commons when it opened. However, it was removed after having been defaced by a Scottish preacher, the reason for his anger was that the painting also showed the Pope, who had blessed Williams enterprise. The building itself changed little over the years, even as the parliaments meeting inside it did, to camouflage it during World War II, the buildings Portland stone was painted with supposedly removable paint made of bitumen and cow manure. However, after the war, removing the paint proved an enormous difficulty and it took seven years to remove the paint, and the exterior façade has never regained its original white colour. While most traces of it were removed from the façades, some of the remains of the paint survive in the inner courtyards, craigavon and his wife are buried in the estate grounds. The building was used for the Parliament of Northern Ireland until it was prorogued in 1972, the Senate chamber was used by the Royal Air Force as an operations room during World War II. The building was used for the short-lived Sunningdale power-sharing executive in 1974, between 1973 and 1998, it served as the headquarters of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. Between 1982 and 1986, it served as the seat of the rolling-devolution assembly and it is now the home of the Northern Ireland Assembly. However, no one supported the demand and the new assembly
2.
Stormont Estate
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The Stormont Estate is an estate east of Belfast in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is the site of Northern Irelands main government buildings, which are surrounded by woods, lying within the townland of Ballymiscaw, Stormont was originally the estate of a Rev. John Cleland. It was named after a district in Perthshire and comes from the Gaelic Stoirmhonadh, Stormont Estate is now home to the Stormont Parkrun, a free, weekly,5 kilometres timed run. The regulations governing the use of the Stormont estate are displayed at its entrance and these were initially enacted on 31 October 1933, in an order by the Ministry of Finance
3.
Belfast
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Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, the second largest on the island of Ireland, and the heart of the tenth largest Primary Urban Area in the United Kingdom. On the River Lagan, it had a population of 286,000 at the 2011 census and 333,871 after the 2015 council reform, Belfast was granted city status in 1888. Belfast played a key role in the Industrial Revolution, and was an industrial centre until the latter half of the 20th century. It has sustained a major aerospace and missiles industry since the mid 1930s, industrialisation and the inward migration it brought made Belfast Irelands biggest city at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, Belfast remains a centre for industry, as well as the arts, higher education, business, and law, additionally, Belfast city centre has undergone considerable expansion and regeneration in recent years, notably around Victoria Square. Belfast is served by two airports, George Best Belfast City Airport in the city, and Belfast International Airport 15 miles west of the city. Although the county borough of Belfast was created when it was granted city status by Queen Victoria in 1888, the site of Belfast has been occupied since the Bronze Age. The Giants Ring, a 5, 000-year-old henge, is located near the city, Belfast remained a small settlement of little importance during the Middle Ages. The ONeill clan had a presence in the area, in the 14th century, Cloinne Aodha Buidhe, descendants of Aodh Buidhe ONeill built Grey Castle at Castlereagh, now in the east of the city. Conn ONeill of the Clannaboy ONeills owned vast lands in the area and was the last inhabitant of Grey Castle, evidence of this period of Belfasts growth can still be seen in the oldest areas of the city, known as the Entries. Belfast blossomed as a commercial and industrial centre in the 18th and 19th centuries, industries thrived, including linen, rope-making, tobacco, heavy engineering and shipbuilding, and at the end of the 19th century, Belfast briefly overtook Dublin as the largest city in Ireland. The Harland and Wolff shipyards became one of the largest shipbuilders in the world, in 1886 the city suffered intense riots over the issue of home rule, which had divided the city. In 1920–22, Belfast became the capital of the new entity of Northern Ireland as the island of Ireland was partitioned, the accompanying conflict cost up to 500 lives in Belfast, the bloodiest sectarian strife in the city until the Troubles of the late 1960s onwards. Belfast was heavily bombed during World War II, in one raid, in 1941, German bombers killed around one thousand people and left tens of thousands homeless. Apart from London, this was the greatest loss of life in a raid during the Blitz. Belfast has been the capital of Northern Ireland since its establishment in 1921 following the Government of Ireland Act 1920 and it had been the scene of various episodes of sectarian conflict between its Catholic and Protestant populations. These opposing groups in conflict are now often termed republican and loyalist respectively. The most recent example of conflict was known as the Troubles – a civil conflict that raged from around 1969 to 1998
4.
Northern Ireland general election, 1921
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The Northern Ireland general election,1921 was held on 24 May 1921. It was the first election to the Parliament of Northern Ireland, Ulster Unionist Party members won a two-thirds majority of votes cast and more than three-quarter of the seats in the assembly. Sinn Féin in particular was shocked at the scale of the Unionist victory, having spent considerable resources on the campaign, the election was conducted using the single transferable vote system. The election took place during the Irish War of Independence, on the day as the election to the parliament of Southern Ireland. As the election in Southern Ireland was merely a formality, with all candidates being returned unopposed, the Sinn Féin campaign focused on the issue of partition implemented by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, with Sinn Féin and the Nationalist party running on a combined anti-partition ticket. Sinn Féin invested considerable resources in their campaign, placing advertisements in almost 50 northern newspapers making a range of arguments against partition. Sinn Féin also published its own newspaper, The Unionist, of which 50,000 copies were sent to prominent Protestants in East Ulster, Sinn Féin also attempted to attract Ulsters rural and agricultural workers, arguing partition would put them at the mercy of eastern Ulsters urban elites. Irish elections,1921 MPs elected in the Northern Ireland general election,1921 Northern Ireland Parliamentary Election Results
5.
Prime Minister of Northern Ireland
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The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland was the head of the Government of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. The office-holder assumed the title Prime Minister to draw parallels with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, on the advice of the new Prime Minister, the Lord Lieutenant then created the Department of the Prime Minister. The office of Prime Minister of Northern Ireland was abolished in 1972, along with the contemporary government, the Government of Ireland Act provided for the appointment of the Executive Committee of the Privy Council by the Governor. Nor, theoretically, was the Executive Committee and its prime minister responsible to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, in reality the Governor chose the leader of the party with a majority in the House to form a government. All Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland were members of the Orange Order, the Prime Ministers residence from 1920 until 1922 was Cabin Hill, later to become the junior school for Campbell College. After 1922 Stormont Castle was used, though some prime ministers chose to live in Stormont House, the new offices of First Minister and deputy First Minister were created by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. In contrast with the Westminster-style system of the earlier Stormont government, ward, The Irish Constitutional Tradition Government of Ireland Act,1920 The Government of Northern Ireland
6.
House of Commons of Northern Ireland
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The House of Commons of Northern Ireland was the lower house of the Parliament of Northern Ireland created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The upper house in the parliament was called the Senate. It was abolished with the passing of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973, the House of Commons had a membership of 52. For the electoral constituencies used, see List of Northern Ireland Parliament constituencies 1921-1973, the House of Commons fulfilled the normal lower house functions to be found in the Westminster System of Government. Its roles were to grant Supply to the Government, to grant to or withdraw confidence from the Government, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland was chosen from its ranks by the Governor of Northern Ireland. The Government of Ireland Act required that elections to the House of Commons be by the Single Transferable Vote electoral system first introduced in Ireland by the Local Government Act 1919 and its inclusion in the 1920 Government of Ireland Act was deliberate. It was intended to provide opportunities for non-Unionists. Under the Act the Parliament of Northern Ireland was given the power to alter the electoral system from three years after its first meeting. The use of STV was criticised strongly among the grassroots of the governing Ulster Unionist Party, the loss of eight seats by the UUP in the second parliamentary election caused a major row within the party. Rather than deal with questions as to why it faced declining popularity the party replaced STV by the less-proportional First Past the Post, however STV was retained for the election of the 4 MPs from Queens University. The creation of Northern Ireland had been opposed both by many Unionists and all Nationalists, all of whom, like Unionist Leader Edward Carson, were opposed to the partition of the island. While Unionists within Northern Ireland became reconciled to their form of rule, Nationalists remained alienated from the structures of the state. Other parties, notably the Northern Ireland Labour Party did however take their seats, the absence of the main opposition party from parliament led to accusations of in effect one party rule. For many years the most effective opposition came from various independent Unionists, in most of its activities the House of Commons deliberately used the same procedure as the Parliament of the United Kingdom at Westminster. Each Parliament opened with a Kings Speech, though only King George V in 1921 gave it in person, from 1922 the speech was delivered by the Governor of Northern Ireland. The Governor was the Crowns representative who formally summoned and prorogued Parliament, the same sessional orders were then agreed relating to members returned for two constituencies. Ministers spoke from a box in a chamber modelled on the British House of Commons chamber, though notably the benches and fixtures of the chamber were blue. As at Westminster, members referred to other in debate as the honourable Member for the division
7.
Single transferable vote
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The single transferable vote is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through ranked voting in multi-seat organizations or constituencies. The exact method of reapportioning votes can vary, Hare–Clark is the name given to STV in lower house elections in two Australian states and territories, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. The name is derived from Thomas Hare, who developed the system, and the Tasmanian Attorney General, Andrew Inglis Clark, Hare–Clark has been changed to use rotating ballot papers. Although the New South Wales Legislative Council and the Senate have reformed their electoral systems to abolish group tickets, STV is the system of choice of groups such as the Proportional Representation Society of Australia, the Electoral Reform Society in the United Kingdom and FairVote in the USA. STV has had its widest adoption in the English-speaking world, as of 2010, in government elections, STV is used for, In British Columbia, Canada, STV was recommended for provincial elections by the BC Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform. In a 2005 provincial referendum, it received 57. 69% support and it was not adopted, however, because it fell short of the 60% threshold requirement the Liberal government had set for the referendum to be binding. For a more complete list, see History and use of the single transferable vote, when STV is used for single-winner elections, it is equivalent to the instant-runoff voting method. STV used for elections is sometimes called proportional representation through the single transferable vote. STV usually refers to the version, as it does in this article. In Australia STV is known as the Hare–Clark Proportional method, while in the United States it is called choice voting. In STV, each voter ranks the list of candidates in order of preference, in the most common ballot design, they place a 1 beside their most preferred candidate, a 2 beside their second most preferred, and so on. The completed ballot paper contains an ordinal list of candidates. The Droop quota is an extension of requiring a 50% +1 majority in single-winner elections, for example, at most 3 people can have 25% +1 in 3-winner elections,9 can have 10% +1 in 9-winner elections, and so on. If fractional votes can be submitted, then the Droop quota may be modified so that the fraction is not rounded down, thus the quota is a positive but not necessarily an integer value. An STV election starts with every voters first choice, according to the following steps, if any such elected candidate has more votes than the quota, the excess votes are transferred to other candidates. Votes that would have gone to the go to the next preference. This can be done in several ways, if no-one new meets the quota, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and those votes are transferred to each voters next preferred candidate. This process repeats until either a winner is found for every seat or there are as many seats as remaining candidates, there are variations, such as how to transfer surplus votes from winning candidates and whether to transfer votes to already-elected candidates
8.
Governor of Northern Ireland
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The Governor of Northern Ireland was the principal officer and representative in Northern Ireland of the British monarch. The office was established on 9 December 1922 and abolished on 18 July 1973, the Governor had possession of the Great Seal of Northern Ireland. The Governor was the successor to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Northern Ireland, the office of the Governor was abolished on 18 July 1973 under Section 32 of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, an office that had been created in 1972. The official residence of the Governor of Northern Ireland was Hillsborough Castle in County Down, following refurbishment of the Castle, the Duke of Abercorn took up residence in 1925. It remained the residence until the abolition of the office of Governor in 1973. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Governor-General of the Irish Free State
9.
Government of Ireland Act 1920
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The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Acts long title was An Act to provide for the government of Ireland. Both areas of Ireland were to continue as a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and provision was made for their future reunification under common Home Rule institutions. Home Rule never took effect in Southern Ireland, due to the Irish War of Independence, which resulted instead in the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the establishment in 1922 of the Irish Free State. However, the set up under this Act for Northern Ireland continued to function until they were suspended by the British parliament in 1972 as a consequence of the Troubles. The remaining provisions of the Act still in force in Northern Ireland were repealed under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, various attempts had been made to give Ireland limited regional self-government, known as Home rule, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Third Home Rule Bill introduced in 1912 by the Irish Parliamentary Party could no longer be vetoed after the passing of the Parliament Act 1911 which removed the power of the Lords to veto bills and they could merely be delayed for two years. Because of the threat of civil war in Ireland, King George V called the Buckingham Palace Conference in July 1914 where Irish Nationalist and Unionist leaders failed to reach agreement. A few weeks after the British entry into the war, the Act received Royal Assent, however, the Suspensory Act 1914 meant that implementation would be suspended for the duration of what was expected to be only a short European war. A delay ensued because of the end of the First World War in November 1918, the Paris Peace Conference,1919. Long proposed the creation of two Irish home rule entities, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, each with unicameral parliaments, the Bills second reading debates in late March 1920 revealed that already a large number of Irish members of parliament present felt that the proposals were unworkable. After considerable delays in debating the financial aspects of the measure, a considerable number of the Irish Members present voted against the Bill, including Southern Unionists such as Maurice Dockrell, and Nationalists like Joe Devlin. During the Great War Irish politics moved decisively in a different direction, sinn Féin, standing for an independent sovereign Ireland, won 73 of the 105 parliamentary seats on the island in the 1918 general election. Its elected members established their own parliament, Dáil Éireann, which declared the independence as the Irish Republic. Dáil Éireann, after a number of meetings, was declared illegal in September 1919 by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, also for a variety of reasons all the Ulster Unionist MPs at Westminster voted against the Act. They preferred that all or most of Ulster would remain fully within the United Kingdom, thus, when the Act became law on 23 December 1920 it was already out of touch with realities in Ireland. The long-standing demand for home rule had been replaced among Nationalists by a demand for complete independence, the Republics army was waging the Irish War of Independence against British rule, which had reached a nadir in late 1920. Northern Ireland as defined by the Act, amounting to six of the nine counties of Ulster, was seen as the area within which Unionists could be expected to have a safe majority
10.
Elections in the United Kingdom
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Within each of those categories, there may be by-elections as well as general elections. Elections are held on Election Day, which is conventionally a Thursday, the Electoral Commission sets standards for and issues guidelines to Returning Officers and Electoral Registration Officers, and is responsible for nationwide electoral administration. The total number of names in the United Kingdom appearing in Electoral Registers published on 1 December 2010 and based on a qualifying date of 15 October 2010 was 45,844,691. In Scotland, anyone who will be aged 16 or over on polling day can register to vote as the age for voting in Scottish local elections and elections to the Scottish Parliament is 16. However, voters in Scotland under 18 are not entitled to vote in European Elections or UK General Elections, a person can still register at his/her ordinary address if he/she will be away temporarily. A person who has two homes may be able to register to vote at both addresses as long as they are not in the electoral area. Remand prisoners, voluntary patients in hospitals and people without a fixed place of residence can register to vote by making a declaration of local connection. Members of HM Forces and their family members have the option of registering as a service voter. British citizens residing outside the United Kingdom can register as an overseas voter provided that they were on the Electoral Register in the UK within the previous 15 years, the 15 years period begins when they no longer appeared in the electoral register, not the date they moved abroad. Overseas voters can vote in European Parliamentary and UK Parliamentary elections in the constituency of their last registered UK address. British citizens who are away overseas temporarily do not need to register as overseas electors, Crown servants and British Council employees employed in a post outside the UK can register by making a Crown Servant declaration, allowing them to vote in all UK elections. The right of Commonwealth and Irish citizens to vote is a legacy of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which limited the vote to British subjects. At that time, British subjects included the people of Ireland — then part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland — and all other parts of the British Empire. Though most of Ireland and the majority of the colonies became independent nations, in theory, members of the Royal Family who are not members of the House of Lords are eligible to vote, although in practice they do not exercise that right. In Great Britain, most electors are enrolled during the course of the annual canvass, canvass forms are sent to all households, and must be returned, otherwise a fine of £1000 can be imposed. Between December and early August, the registration procedure applies instead. Applications must be submitted individually using registration forms available from local Electoral Registration Officers or the Electoral Commissions website, application forms can be returned to the local Electoral Registration Officer by post, by fax or by e-mail as a scanned attachment. As of June 2014, as part of the Governments Digital By Default policy, voters in England, special category electors do not register through the annual canvass procedure
11.
Parliament of Northern Ireland
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It was subsequently abolished under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. The Parliament of Northern Ireland was bicameral, consisting of a House of Commons with 52 seats, the House of Commons had 52 members, of which 48 were for territorial seats and four were for graduates of Queens University, Belfast. The boundary changes were not made by a boundary commission but by the Unionist government. Population movements were so small that these boundaries were used almost everywhere until the Parliament was dissolved in 1972, in 1968 the government abolished the Queens University constituency and created four new constituencies in the outskirts of Belfast where populations had grown. This change helped the Unionists, as they only two of the University seats but won all four of the newly created seats. There had, however, long been calls from outside Unionism to abolish the graduate franchise, the Senate was a last-minute addition to the Parliament, after the original plans for a single Senate covering both the Stormont and Dublin Parliaments were overtaken by events. Twenty-four senators were elected by the House of Commons using the single transferable vote, the elections were carried out after each general election, with 12 members elected for two parliaments each time. The other two seats were held ex officio by the Lord Mayor of Belfast and the Mayor of Londonderry, the Senate generally had the same party balance as the House of Commons, though abstaining parties and very small parties were not represented. Because of this, and its dependence on the House of Commons for election, the British monarch was originally to have been represented in both Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. However, the replacement of Southern Ireland by the Irish Free State led to the abolition of the post of Lord Lieutenant, instead, a new office – Governor of Northern Ireland – was created on 12 December 1922. Initially the Parliament met in Belfasts City Hall but moved immediately to the Presbyterian Churchs Assemblys College, the Commons met in the Colleges Gamble Library and the Senate in the Chapel. In 1932, Parliament moved to the new purpose-built Parliament Buildings, designed by Sir Arnold Thornely, at Stormont, the city boundaries were extended slightly to include Stormont within the capital city. Stormont came to be a nickname referring both to the Parliament itself and to the Northern Ireland government, the Parliament did not try to infringe the terms of the Government of Ireland Act, on only one occasion did the United Kingdom government advise the King to withhold royal assent. This was the Local Government Act which abolished proportional representation in government elections. The output of legislation was high for a devolved Parliament, though some of the Acts were adaptations of recently passed acts by the United Kingdom parliament. The 1921 general election was fought on the issue of partition. Thereafter, general election timing was up to the Prime Minister, elections almost always took place at a time when the issue of partition had been raised in a new crisis. This generally guaranteed the loyalty of Protestant voters to the Unionist Party, independent Unionist candidates and the Northern Ireland Labour Party were usually accused of being splitters or dupes of the Nationalists
