South Tyrone (UK Parliament constituency)

South Tyrone was a UK Parliament constituency in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

Boundaries and Boundary Changes

This county constituency comprised the southern part of County Tyrone

County Tyrone

Historically Tyrone stretched as far north as Lough Foyle, and comprised part of modern day County Londonderry east of the River Foyle. The majority of County Londonderry was carved out of Tyrone between 1610-1620 when that land went to the Guilds of London to set up profit making schemes based on...

.

It returned one Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

1885–1922.

Prior to the 1885 redistribution the area was part of the Tyrone (UK Parliament constituency)

Tyrone (UK Parliament constituency)

Tyrone is a former UK Parliament constituency in Ireland, returning two Members of Parliament.-Boundaries and Boundary Changes:This constituency comprised the whole of County Tyrone, except the Parliamentary borough of Dungannon....

. From 1922 it formed part of the Fermanagh and Tyrone (UK Parliament constituency)

Fermanagh and Tyrone (UK Parliament constituency)

Fermanagh and Tyrone was a Parliamentary Constituency in Northern Ireland which was represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...

Politics

The constituency was a majority unionist area. Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...

and the Independent Nationalist candidate together polled about 2,500 votes less than the Unionist received in 1918.

The First Dáil

Sinn Féin

contested the general election of 1918

Irish (UK) general election, 1918

The Irish general election of 1918 was that part of the 1918 United Kingdom general election that took place in Ireland. It is seen as a key moment in modern Irish history...

on the platform that instead of taking up any seats they won in the United Kingdom Parliament, they would establish a revolutionary assembly in Dublin. In republican theory every MP elected in Ireland was a potential Deputy to this assembly. In practice only the Sinn Féin members accepted the offer.

The revolutionary First Dáil

First Dáil

The First Dáil was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 1919–1921. In 1919 candidates who had been elected in the Westminster elections of 1918 refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled as a unicameral, revolutionary parliament called "Dáil Éireann"...

assembled on 21 January 1919 and last met on 10 May 1921. The First Dáil, according to a resolution passed on 10 May 1921, was formally dissolved on the assembling of the Second Dáil

Second Dáil

The Second Dáil was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 16 August 1921 until 8 June 1922. From 1919–1922 Dáil Éireann was the revolutionary parliament of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic. The Second Dáil consisted of members elected in 1921...

. This took place on 16 August 1921.

In 1921 Sinn Féin decided to use the UK authorised elections for the Northern Ireland House of Commons and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland as a poll for the Irish Republic

Irish Republic

The Irish Republic was a revolutionary state that declared its independence from Great Britain in January 1919. It established a legislature , a government , a court system and a police force...

's Second Dáil

Second Dáil

. This area, in republican theory, was incorporated in an eight-member Dáil constituency of Fermanagh and Tyrone

Fermanagh and Tyrone (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency)

Fermanagh and Tyrone was a county constituency of the Parliament of Northern Ireland from 1921 - 1929. It returned eight MPs, using the single transferable vote method of proportional representation.-Boundaries:...

Members of Parliament

From	To	Name	Party
1885	1886	William O'Brien William O'Brien William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...	Nationalist Irish nationalism Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
1886	1910	Thomas Wallace Russell Sir Thomas Wallace Russell, 1st Baronet Sir Thomas Wallace Russell, 1st Baronet PC , was an Irish politician and agrarian agitator. Born at Cupar, Fife, Scotland, he moved to County Tyrone at the age of eighteen...	Liberal Unionist¹
1910	1916	Andrew Long Horner	Liberal Unionist
1916	1922	William Coote	Ulster Unionist

¹Russellite Unionist

Russellite Unionist

The Russellite group, were the followers of Thomas Wallace Russell an Irish political leader of the early twentieth century.Russell was the Liberal Unionist MP for South Tyrone. He and some followers left the party in February 1904. They favoured a policy of compulsory land purchase...

/Liberal

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

from 1906

Elections

The elections in this constituency took place using the first past the post electoral system.

External links