Nationalist Party (Northern Ireland)

The Nationalist Party was the continuation of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and was formed after partition, by the Northern Ireland-based members of the IPP.

The Nationalist Party did not enter the House of Commons of Northern Ireland until 1924, having won six seats in the general election of 1921. In 1965, it agreed to become the official opposition party in the House of Commons.

On 20 June 1968, Austin Currie, Nationalist Party MP at Stormont, with others, began a protest about discrimination in housing allocation by 'squatting' (illegally occupying) a house in Caledon, County Tyrone. The house had been allocated by Dungannon Rural District Council to a 19-year-old unmarried Protestant woman, Emily Beattie, who was the secretary of a local Unionist politician. Emily Beattie was given the house ahead of older married Catholic families with children. The protesters were evicted by officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), one of whom was Emily Beattie's brother. The next day the annual conference of the Nationalist Party unanimously approved of the protest action by Austin Currie in Caledon.^[1] This was one of the catalysts of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. The party became involved in the Derry civil rights march in October 1968, which ended in violence amidst allegations of police brutality. As a result, the party withdrew from its role as official opposition on 15 October 1968, following the controversy of two weeks earlier.^[2]

The party developed a reputation for being disorganised and being little more than a collection of elected members with their own local machines. Many calls were made for the party to develop an overall organisation but it fell apart in the late 1960s.^[3] Earlier, many members had formed the National Democratic Party (NDP) after attempts at reform failed. The NDP merged into the Social Democratic and Labour Party at that party's foundation in 1970 and many remaining nationalists followed them. One of the Nationalist Party's last electoral contests was the 1973 election for the Assembly created as part of the Sunningdale Agreement. The lack of success in that election meant that the writing was on the wall, although a handful of councillors were elected to Omagh District Council and Londonderry City Council in 1973 and 1977. In October 1977,^[4] the party merged with Unity to form the Irish Independence Party which also included non-aligned republicans. Although it was successful for a while in capturing the Republican vote, it faded from view due to the rise of Sinn Féin in the early 1980s.

Leaders

• Joseph Devlin 1918-1934
• Thomas Joseph Campbell 1934-1945
• James McSparran 1945-1958
• Joe Stewart 1958-1964
• Eddie McAteer 1964-1969
• Roderick O'Connor 1969-1972

Following the abolition of Stormont, Eddie McAteer became the effective party leader, while his son Fergus McAteer gradually assumed greater importance.

References