List of Northern Ireland members of the House of Lords

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This is a list of sitting Members of the United Kingdom House of Lords who were born, live or lived in Northern Ireland.

This list does not include hereditary peers who have lost their seat in the Lords following the House of Lords Act 1999, or those in the Peerage of Ireland, who have never had an automatic right to a seat in the House of Lords at Westminster.[1]

Note: There is no such thing as the Peerage of Northern Ireland and peers do not represent geographic areas as such.[2] Some do, however, choose titles which reflect geographical localities, e.g. Lord Kilclooney, this is, however, entirely nominal.

Listed in order of surname, not title

Current members

Name Party Notes
John Alderdice     Liberal Democrat Former leader of the Alliance Party
Paul Bew     Crossbencher
May Blood     Labour
Alan Brooke     Crossbencher representative peer, Lord-in-Waiting to The Queen, is the grandson of a former Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and son of an Ulster Unionist MP.
Wallace Browne     DUP former Lord Mayor of Belfast
Robert Carswell     Crossbencher former Law Lord and former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland
Robin Dixon     Conservative representative peer
Robin Eames     Crossbencher retired Anglican Archbishop of Armagh
Reg Empey     UUP former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party
Brian Hutton     Crossbencher former Law Lord and former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland
Brian Kerr     Crossbencher currently not sitting due to being a Law Lord and former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland
John Laird     UUP former chairman of the Ulster-Scots Agency and former Stormont MP
Kenneth Maginnis     Independent Unionist former Ulster Unionist Party MP
Brian Mawhinney     Conservative former Secretary of State for Transport and former Chairman of the Conservative Party

Deceased members

References

  1. ↑ Irish Peers sat in the Irish House of Lords, with the passing of the Act of Union 1800 this House was abolished and twenty-eight Peers in the peerage of Ireland were elected to sit in the United Kingdom House of Lords between 1800 and 1922, when the right was exhausted due to the Government of Ireland Act.
  2. ↑ In the Earl of Antrim's Petition [1967] 1 A.C. 691 it was held that Irish Representative Peers did, in fact, represent Ireland as an entity, thus on the passing of the Government of Ireland Act elections from the Irish Peerage could no longer take place, as the Ireland of the Act of Union 1800 ceased to exist.

See also