1921 Northern Ireland general election

The 1921 Northern Ireland general election 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-quarters 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, and had expected to win between 1/3 and 1/2 of the seats. The election was conducted using the single transferable vote system.

1921 Northern Ireland general election
24 May 1921
All 52 seats to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland
27 seats were needed for a majority
Turnout88.0%
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader James Craig Éamon de Valera Joe Devlin
Party UUP Sinn Féin Nationalist
Leader since 1921 1917 1918
Leader's seat Down Down Belfast West
Seats won 40 6 6
Popular vote 343,347 104,917 60,577
Percentage 66.9% 20.5% 11.8%
Percentage of seats gained by each of the party.
Prime Minister before election

N/A

 Elected Prime Minister

James Craig
UUP

Northern Ireland 1921–1972
This article is part of a series on the
politics and government of
Northern Ireland 1921–1972

The election took place during the Irish War of Independence, on the same 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 (and therefore guaranteeing Sinn Féin complete dominance), Sinn Féin was able to focus its resources entirely on the election in Northern Ireland. 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.[1]

Sinn Féin campaign

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, particularly County Antrim. In particular, Sinn Féin claimed there was widespread ignorance over the situation in Ulster and warned against the economic dangers of partition, particularly in relation to threats of a renewed boycott against northern goods in a manner similar to the "Belfast Boycott". Sinn Féin also attempted to attract Ulster's rural and agricultural workers, arguing partition would put them at the mercy of eastern Ulster's urban elites.[1]

Despite the scale and organisation of the campaign, its arguments failed to resonate with voters, with the party's chief organiser Eamon Donnelly claiming on the day of the election that all Sinn Féin's efforts had achieved was assuring a high Unionist turnout.[1]

Results
↓
40 6 6
UUP Sinn Fein Nationalist
1921 Northern Ireland general election
Party Candidates Votes
Stood Elected Gained Unseated Net % of total % No. Net %
  UUP 40 40 N/A N/A N/A 76.92 66.9 343,347 N/A
  Sinn Féin 20 6 N/A N/A N/A 11.54 20.5 104,917 N/A
  Nationalist 12 6 N/A N/A N/A 11.54 11.8 60,577 N/A
  Belfast Labour 4 0 N/A N/A N/A 0.00 0.6 3,075 N/A
  Independent 1 0 N/A N/A N/A 0.00 0.2 926 N/A

Total electorate: 582,464; turnout: 88.0% (512,842).

Votes summary
Popular vote
Ulster Unionist
 
 66.95%
Sinn Féin
 
 20.46%
Nationalist
 
 11.81%
Belfast Labour
 
 0.60%
Independent
 
 0.18%

Seats summary
Parliamentary seats
Ulster Unionist
 
 76.92%
Sinn Féin
 
 11.54%
Nationalist
 
 11.54%
gollark: And mark that method as unsafe since *in its current form it is not safe*.
gollark: You should get someone to code-review it, though.
gollark: ```Instead of the programs I had hoped for, there came only a shuddering blackness and ineffable loneliness; and I saw at last a fearful truth which no one had ever dared to breathe before — the unwhisperable secret of secrets — The fact that this language of stone and stridor is not a sentient perpetuation of Rust as London is of Old London and Paris of Old Paris, but that it is in fact quite unsafe, its sprawling body imperfectly embalmed and infested with queer animate things which have nothing to do with it as it was in compilation.```
gollark: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nomicon/index.html
gollark: Do not embark on the madness of unsafe Rust. Not even the Rustonomicon can save you fully.

See also

Footnotes
  1. Lynch, Robert (2015). Revolutionary Ireland, 1912–25. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 96–97.

References
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.