William Basil McIvor OBE PC (NI) (17 June 1928-5 November 2004) was an Ulster Unionist politician, barrister and pioneer of integrated education.
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The son of Rev. Frederick McIvor, a Methodist clergyman, McIvor was born in the Tullyhommon, County Fermanagh part of the village of Pettigo, which straddles the Northern Ireland border.[1][2] McIvor attended the Methodist College, Belfast and the Queen's University of Belfast and was called to the Bar of Northern Ireland in 1950.[1][2] In his career at the Bar, Basil McIvor became Junior Crown Counsel and a Resident Magistrate in the 1970s.[1][2]
He was elected to the Northern Ireland Parliament as Ulster Unionist Party MP for Larkfield[3] in the 1969 election.[1] He was one of a group of MPs who supported the beleaguered Prime Minister, Terence O'Neill. Viewed as a liberal he was given the job of Minister of Community Relations by Brian Faulkner in 1971 and resigned from the Orange Order.
McIvor was a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973, topping the poll in Belfast South,[4] and a member of the Ulster Unionist contingent who negotiated the Sunningdale Agreement in 1973. When the powersharing Executive was set up in the aftermath of Sunningdale McIvor headed the Education Department.[2] McIvor left politics after the fall of the Executive in 1974 and sat as a resident magistrate.
In 1987 he was subject of a motion tabled in the United Kingdom House of Commons by four UUP MPs who accued him of showing bias against unionists and members of the Orange Order in a county Antrim case and so demanded McIvor's removal from the bench.[5]
McIvor presided over the initial investigation into UVF supergrass William 'Budgie' Allen and that of several people accused of killing two corporals in Belfast.[2]
He was involved in campaigning for shared schools for Protestant and Catholic pupils in Northern Ireland.[1] In 1981 he became the first chairman of Lagan College, Northern Ireland's first integrated school.[2] When Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness became education minister he invited him to visit the college.[6] He was also a governor of Campbell College, Belfast from 1975 until his death.
Basil McIvor died on the 5 November 2004 aged 76 while playing golf at Royal County Down.[2]
| Parliament of Northern Ireland | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by New position |
Member of Parliament for Larkfield 1969 - 1972 |
Succeeded by Position prorogued 1972 Parliament abolished 1973 |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by David Bleakley |
Minister for Community Relations 1971 - 72 |
Succeeded by Post abolished |
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