What is this about? The Cameron Report (1969) claimed that there were “ward areas in which Unionist representatives were returned by small majorities, whereas Non-Unionist representatives were returned by very large majorities” in places like Londonderry and Omagh. This conclusion is not supported by actual local government election results. Analyses of electoral registers tended to overstate Catholic support for Nationalist candidates to a significant degree.
What is this about? There was a ratepayers vote in Northern Ireland in local government elections until 1969. This meant the ratepayer and the ratepayer’s spouse could vote but other adults in a household could not. They would need a house of their own to get votes. It was often argued that by restricting the number of houses which Catholics were allocated by the Unionist controlled Londonderry Corporation, Protestants could deprive Catholics of votes. This paper shows that 80% of the additional voters who appeared on the local government electoral register between 1936 and 1967 were Catholics, and hence Catholics would have been allocated roughly 80% of the additional houses which appeared between those dates.
The 10,000 Londonderry Protestants Missing From the West Bank of the Foyle – Paul Kingsley (2019)
What is this about? There is general agreement that thousands of Londonderry Protestants left their homes on the West Bank of the Foyle from the late 1960s, when serious public disorder broke out in the city. This was followed by an IRA terrorist campaign. Intimidation of Protestants was a major factor in this exodus. Academic studies of the total involved suffer from a range of shortcomings which tend to underestimate the numbers who left the West Bank. This paper uses the records of the Derry Catholic Registration Association and Census returns to show that at least 13,000 Protestants once lived on the West Bank and that at least 10,000 of those are no longer there.
What is this about? Some sections of the civil rights movement in the 1960s claimed that they were striving for British rights and British standards. This paper identifies the modern British standards which would be applicable to two controversial decisions: the drawing of the ward boundaries of the Londonderry County Borough (Londonderry Corporation) in 1936, and the choice of the location for Ulster’s second university in the 1960s. The results do not support the idea that Catholics were unfairly treated.
Londonderry Corporation Under Nationalist Rule 1920-23 – Paul Kingsley (2020)
What is this about? In 1919, the British government made a cynical decision to introduce proportional representation for local government elections throughout Ireland in order to minimise the number of seats Sinn Fein might have won in the South and West. This had the effect of briefly delivering the Londonderry Corporation into the hands of a Nationalist coalition. Unionists would have studied this example of Nationalist rule and formed some ideas about what to expect if this phenomenon became more widespread in Ulster.
Voting for the IRA – Paul Kingsley (2020)
What is this about? In the 1955 Westminster General Election, Sinn Fein put up candidates who were members of the IRA at that time serving prison sentences for terrorist offences. In three constituencies West of the River Bann, these IRA candidates won just under 80,000 votes and two of them were elected. In a subsequent Mid Ulster by-election the IRA candidate was opposed by a Nationalist committed to peaceful methods and backed by the Irish Government and the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. Almost 80% of Mid Ulster Catholics preferred the IRA candidate. These election results would have heavily influenced Unionist perceptions of Catholics in the West of Ulster as they entered the turbulent years of the 1960s.
What is this about? In August 2020, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill stated that Northern Ireland was built on discrimination and gerrymandering. This paper addresses the charge of gerrymandering in the Omagh Rural District Council, where there were revisions of electoral division boundaries in 1923. Electoral divisions, which had not been changed in over 80 years, displayed big differences in population and were in serious need of revision. By examining the distribution of Catholic voters and applying modern British standards of fairness in drawing up boundaries for first-past-the-post elections, this paper concludes that allegations of gerrymandering are unfounded.
The Redrawing of the Omagh Urban District Council Ward Boundaries in 1934-35 – Paul Kingsley (2021)
What is this about? In the 1930s there were two contentious boundary revisions in Northern Ireland. The situation in the Londonderry County Borough (Londonderry Corporation) in 1936 has been dealt with in my previous paper, British Standards, the Drawing of Londonderry’s Ward Boundaries and the Location of Ulster’s Second University. The second example was that of the Omagh Urban District Council, where a boundary revision transferred control from Nationalists to Unionists. This paper demonstrates how Nationalists had previously gained control of the marginal South Ward by building houses there and adopting an official policy of allocating at least two-thirds of them to Catholics. This meant the South Ward had quite a few more voters than the other wards. The boundary revision in 1934-35 applied the modern British standard of community of interest in redrawing the ward boundaries.
What is this about? Sometimes an impression was given that Nationalists had a proud record of contesting Unionist held council seats and had amassed a body of evidence to show that they won more votes than Unionists in certain council areas. The Cameron Commission notoriously claimed that there were “ward areas in which Unionist representatives were returned by small majorities, whereas Non-Unionist [Nationalist] representatives were returned by very large majorities”. This was quite untrue. This paper shows that Nationalists’ record of opposing Unionists was very weak and, in some council areas, non-existent. They were electoral shirkers, refusing to force contested elections in Unionist controlled wards and electoral divisions. This refusal to take part in contested elections tended to hide the fact that Nationalists were not as good at winning the Catholic vote as they claimed they were. In the West of Ulster, where most of the controversy arose, they were much more likely to see their target voters defect to Labour than were Unionists. Electoral shirking is still rather shocking to English voters, and had they been aware of its extent, they may have been less sympathetic to Nationalist complaints about electoral arrangements.
A Short Guide to Elections for the Londonderry Corporation 1920-1967 – Paul Kingsley (2021)
What is this about? The subject of the old Londonderry Corporation’s electoral arrangements has suffered from misinformation for at least 100 years. This paper will hopefully act as a work of reference to correct many of the misunderstandings and misrepresentations. It should also be helpful to those with a general interest in local government elections in Northern Ireland before councils were stripped of most of their powers in 1973. Finally, because Labour candidates provided the main source of contested elections, this paper should be of some interest to students of Labour politics outside Belfast.
James Cooper and the Defence of Fermanagh’s Electoral Arrangements 1923-1924 – Paul Kingsley (2022)
What is this about? Many of the rural district councils had the boundaries of their electoral divisions revised in the 1920s, particularly in Counties Fermanagh and Tyrone. The boundaries had not been updated in 80 years and huge differences in the populations of electoral divisions had emerged. This paper looks at the three Fermanagh rural districts of Irvinestown, Lisnaskea and Enniskillen Rural based on data compiled by a Unionist MP and solicitor, James Cooper. Nationalists alleged that the new boundaries were gerrymandered – arranged in an unfair and unnatural way to give an unmerited advantage to Unionists. I show that Nationalists were inefficiently concentrated in a small number of border divisions, not by drawing lines on maps in strange places, but because of historic patterns of settlement.