Belfast Falls (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency)

Belfast Falls was a constituency of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.

Belfast Falls
Former Borough Constituency
for the Parliament of Northern Ireland
Belfast Falls shown within Belfast and Belfast shown within Northern Ireland
Former constituency
Created1929
Abolished1973
Election methodFirst past the post

Boundaries

Belfast Falls was a borough constituency comprising part of western Belfast. It was created in 1929, when the House of Commons (Method of Voting and Redistribution of Seats) Act (Northern Ireland) 1929 introduced first-past-the-post elections throughout Northern Ireland.

Belfast Falls was created by the division of Belfast West into four new constituencies. It was formed from the Falls ward and included the Falls Road. It survived unchanged, returning one member of Parliament, until the Parliament of Northern Ireland was temporarily suspended in 1972, and then formally abolished in 1973.[1]

Politics

The constituency was the most staunchly nationalist in Belfast. It was initially held by Nationalist Party members, then later by a variety of labour movement activists and members of smaller nationalist parties.[1]

Members of Parliament
ElectionMemberParty
1929 Richard Byrne Nationalist Party
1933
1938
1942 Eamon Donnelly Independent Republican
1945 Harry Diamond Socialist Republican Party
1949
1953
1958 Republican Labour Party
1962
1965
1969 Paddy Devlin Northern Ireland Labour Party
1970 Social Democratic and Labour Party
1973 Constituency abolished

Election results
Northern Ireland 1921–1972
This article is part of a series on the
politics and government of
Northern Ireland 1921–1972
General Election 22 May 1929: Belfast Falls[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Nationalist Richard Byrne 6,941 55.8 N/A
NI Labour Billy McMullen 5,509 44.2 N/A
Majority 1,432 11.6 N/A
Nationalist gain from new seat Swing
General Election 30 November 1933: Belfast Falls[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Nationalist Richard Byrne Unopposed N/A N/A
Nationalist hold Swing N/A
General Election 9 February 1938: Belfast Falls[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Nationalist Richard Byrne 5,334 53.3 N/A
NI Labour John Glass 4,667 46.7 N/A
Majority 667 6.6
Nationalist hold Swing N/A
  • Death of Byrne
By-election 2 April 1942: Belfast Falls[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Independent Republican Eamon Donnelly 4,595 54.8 N/A
Nationalist George McGouran 1,971 23.5 N/A
NI Labour John Glass 1,821 21.7 - 25.0
Majority 2,623
Independent Republican gain from Nationalist Swing
General Election 14 June 1945: Belfast Falls[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Socialist Republican Harry Diamond 5,016 42.9 N/A
Federation of Labour John Collins 3,912 33.5 N/A
Nationalist James McGlade 2,766 23.6 N/A
Majority 1,104 9.4 N/A
Socialist Republican gain from Independent Republican Swing
General Election 10 February 1949: Belfast Falls[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Socialist Republican Harry Diamond unopposed N/A N/A
Majority N/A N/A
Socialist Republican hold Swing
General Election 22 October 1953: Belfast Falls[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Republican Labour Harry Diamond 7,510 73.1
Independent Irish Labour Seamus MacKearney 2,761 26.9
Irish Labour Jack MacGougan 1,361 11.8
Majority 4,749 46.2
Republican Labour gain from Socialist Republican Swing
General Election 20 March 1958: Belfast Falls[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Republican Labour Harry Diamond 7,510 73.1
Independent Irish Labour Seamus MacKearney 2,761 26.9
Majority 4,749 46.2
Republican Labour hold Swing
General Election 31 May 1962: Belfast Falls[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Republican Labour Harry Diamond 7,662 76.6
Ind. Labour Group John Joseph Brennan 2,343 23.4
Majority 5,319 53.2
Republican Labour hold Swing
General Election 25 November 1965: Belfast Falls[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Republican Labour Harry Diamond unopposed N/A N/A
Majority N/A N/A N/A
Republican Labour hold Swing
General Election 24 February 1969: Belfast Falls[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
NI Labour Paddy Devlin 6,275 53.1 N/A
Republican Labour Harry Diamond 5,549 46.9 N/A
Majority 726 6.2 N/A
NI Labour gain from Republican Labour Swing
gollark: I have a problematic problem with "Minoteaur".
gollark: I have heard it said that Unicode's attempt to have a simple unified way to do everything with ??? combining characters actually breaks horribly for most non-English languages.
gollark: Macron is complicated.
gollark: Hmm. The content model rework is proving difficult on the UI side.
gollark: Okay.

References
  1. The Northern Ireland House of Commons, 1921-1972, Northern Ireland Elections
  2. Northern Ireland Parliamentary Elections Results: Boroughs: Belfast
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.