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1921 Northern Ireland general election

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Field	Value
election_name	1921 Northern Ireland general election
country	Northern Ireland
flag_image	Flag of the United Kingdom.svg
type	parliamentary
ongoing	no
elected_mps	MPs elected
next_election	1925 Northern Ireland general election
next_year	1925
seats_for_election	All 52 seats to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland
27 seats were needed for a majority
election_date	24 May 1921
turnout	88.0%
image1	[[File:James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon.jpg	150x150px]]
leader1	James Craig
leader_since1	1921
party1	Ulster Unionist Party
leaders_seat1	Down
seats1	40
popular_vote1	343,347
percentage1	66.9%
image2	[[Image:Eamon de Valera c 1922-30.jpg	150x150px]]
leader2	Éamon de Valera
leader_since2	1917
party2	Sinn Féin
leaders_seat2	Down
seats2	6
popular_vote2	104,917
percentage2	20.5%
image3	[[File:Joe Devlin.JPG	150x150px]]
leader3	Joe Devlin
leader_since3	1918
party3	Nationalist Party (Northern Ireland)
leaders_seat3	Belfast West
seats3	6
popular_vote3	60,577
percentage3	11.8%
map_image	File:1921 Northern Ireland General Election Results Map.png
map_size	400px
map_caption	Results of the 1921 Northern Ireland General Election.
title	Prime Minister
posttitle	Prime Minister after election
before_election	N/A
after_election	James Craig
after_party	Ulster Unionist Party

27 seats were needed for a majority

The 1921 Northern Ireland general election was held on Tuesday, 24 May 1921. It was the first election to the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Ulster Unionist Party members won two-thirds of votes cast and more than three-quarters of the seats in the assembly. Sinn Féin in particular was shocked at the scale of the Unionist victory, having spent considerable resources on the campaign, and had expected to win between 1/3 and 1/2 of the seats. Sinn Féin and Nationalist Party candidates were successful in the joint County Tyrone/Fermanagh constituency with 54.71 percent of the vote. The election was conducted using the single transferable vote system.

The election took place during the Irish War of Independence, on the same day as the election to the parliament of Southern Ireland. As the election in Southern Ireland was merely a formality, with all candidates being returned unopposed (and therefore guaranteeing Sinn Féin complete dominance), Sinn Féin was able to focus its resources entirely on the election in Northern Ireland. The Sinn Féin campaign focused on the issue of partition implemented by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, with Sinn Féin and the Nationalist party running on a combined anti-partition ticket.

Sinn Féin campaign

Sinn Féin invested considerable resources in their campaign, placing advertisements in almost 50 northern newspapers making a range of arguments against partition. Sinn Féin also published its own newspaper, The Unionist, of which 50,000 copies were sent to prominent Protestants in East Ulster, particularly County Antrim. In particular, Sinn Féin claimed there was widespread ignorance over the situation in Ulster and warned against the economic dangers of partition, particularly in relation to threats of a renewed boycott against northern goods in a manner similar to the "Belfast Boycott". Sinn Féin also attempted to attract Ulster's rural and agricultural workers, arguing partition would put them at the mercy of eastern Ulster's urban elites.

Despite the scale and organisation of the campaign, its arguments failed to resonate with voters, with the party's chief organiser Eamon Donnelly claiming on the day of the election that all Sinn Féin's efforts had achieved was assuring a high Unionist turnout. Allegations were made claiming intimidation of Nationalist voters, arrests of candidates/organisers and the seizure of electoral literature.

Sinn Féin treated the two elections north and south as combined elections to the Second Dáil. Five of the six successful Sinn Féin candidates in Northern Ireland were also elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland; Seán O'Mahony was the only Sinn Féin success solely elected in Northern Ireland.

Results

Ulster Unionist Party}};"UUP	Sinn Féin}};"Sinn Fein	Nationalist Party (Northern Ireland)}};"Nationalist

|votes % = 66.9 |seats % = 76.92 |plus/minus = N/A |votes % = 20.5 |seats % = 11.54 |plus/minus = N/A |votes % = 11.8 |seats % = 11.54 |plus/minus = N/A |votes % = 0.6 |seats % = 0.00 |plus/minus = N/A |votes % = 0.2 |seats % = 0.00 |plus/minus = N/A |}

Total electorate: 582,464; turnout: 88.0% (512,842).

Votes summary

Seats summary

Footnotes

References

Northern Ireland Parliamentary Election Results

References

. ["Northern Ireland: 24 May 1921"](https://electionsireland.org/result.cfm?election=1921NI&cons=727).
Lynch, Robert. (2015). "Revolutionary Ireland, 1912–25". Bloomsbury Publishing.
Gallagher, Frank. (1957). "The Indivisible Island". Victor Gollancz Ltd..

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1921-elections-in-the-united-kingdom# general-elections-to-the-parliament-of-northern-ireland may-1921-in-the-united-kingdom 1921-elections-in-northern-ireland

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