Belfast St Anne's (UK Parliament constituency)

St Anne's, a division of Belfast, was a UK parliamentary constituency in Ireland. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1922, using the first past the post electoral system.

Belfast St Anne's
Former Borough constituency
for the House of Commons
1918–1922
Number of membersOne
Replaced byBelfast West
Created fromBelfast West

Boundaries and boundary changes

The constituency was created by the Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918 from an area which had been in the Belfast West constituency. It the southern third of West Belfast, and contained the then St Anne's and St George's wards of Belfast City Council.[1] The streets in St Anne's ward in 1911 are listed here and here, and the streets in St George's ward in 1911 are listed here. Between them, those wards contained the area between the Falls Road and the railway to Lisburn.

It was in use at the 1918 general election only, and under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 its area was again part of the Belfast West constituency, with effect at the 1922 general election.

Politics

The constituency was strongly unionist. The unionists ran a candidate from the Ulster Unionist Labour Association, a group affiliated with the Unionist Party, as a Labour Unionist. He easily won the seat. An Independent Unionist candidate was in second place. Sinn Féin was third with eleven per cent of the vote.

First Dáil

After the 1918 election, Sinn Féin invited all those elected for constituencies in Ireland to sit as TDs in Dáil Éireann rather than in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.[2] All those elected for Irish constituencies were included in the roll of the Dáil but only those elected for Sinn Féin sat in the First Dáil.[3] In May 1921, the Dáil passed a resolution declaring that elections to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland would be used as the election for the Second Dáil and that the First Dáil would be dissolved on the assembly of the new body.[4] The area of Belfast St Anne's would then have been represented in the Dáil by the four-seat constituency of Belfast West, which also returned no representatives for Sinn Féin.

Members of Parliament
ElectionMemberParty
1918 Thomas Henry Burn Labour Unionist
1922 constituency abolished

Election
1918 general election: Belfast St Anne's
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Labour Unionist Thomas Henry Burn 9,155 74.8 N/A
Independent Unionist William Hugh Alexander 1,752 14.2 N/A
Sinn Féin Dermot Barnes 1,341 11.0 N/A
Majority 7,403 60.6 N/A
Turnout 12,248 65.5 N/A
Labour Unionist win (new seat)
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See also

Notes
  1. Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918, Second Schedule, Part I
  2. "The inaugural public meeting of Dáil Éireann". Dáil 100. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  3. "3. AN ROLLA". Houses of the Oireachtas. 21 January 1919. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
  4. "Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 10 May 1921 - PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT. - ELECTIONS". Houses of the Oireachtas. Retrieved 23 February 2019.

References
  • Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801–1922, edited by B.M. Walker (Royal Irish Academy 1978)
  • Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Volume III 1919–1945, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (The Harvester Press 1979)
  • (Information about boundaries of the constituency derived from the map of Northern Ireland Parliament constituencies (in force from 1921) and the wards included in the Belfast UK Parliament seats (in force 1922) for which see Northern Ireland Parliamentary Election Results 1921–1972, by Sydney Elliott (Political Reference Publications 1973) and Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies 1885–1972, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Political Reference Publications 1972) respective
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