Newry and Armagh (UK Parliament constituency)

Newry and Armagh is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Mickey Brady of Sinn Féin.

For other constituencies of the same name, see Newry and Armagh (disambiguation).

Newry and Armagh
County constituency
for the House of Commons
Boundary of Newry and Armagh in Northern Ireland
Current constituency
Created1983
Member of ParliamentMickey Brady (Sinn Féin)
Created fromArmagh and South Down[1]

Boundaries

1983–1997: The District of Armagh, and the District of Newry and Mourne wards of Ballybot, Belleek, Bessbrook, Camlough, Creggan, Crossmaglen, Daisy Hill, Derrymore, Drumalane, Drumgullion, Fathom, Forkhill, Newtownhamilton, St Mary's, St Patrick's, Tullyhappy, and Windsor Hill.

1997–present: The District of Armagh, and the District of Newry and Mourne wards of Ballybot, Bessbrook, Camlough, Creggan, Crossmaglen, Daisy Hill, Derrymore, Drumgullion, Drumalane, Fathom, Forkhill, Newtownhamilton, Silver Bridge, St Mary's, St Patrick's, Tullyhappy, and Windsor Hill.

The seat was created in boundary changes in 1983, as part of an expansion of Northern Ireland's constituencies from 12 to 17, and was predominantly made up from the old Armagh constituency with the addition of Newry town from the old South Down constituency. In 1995, the Boundary Commission originally proposed to abolish the seat with the Armagh district joining most of Dungannon in a new 'Blackwater' constituency with the rest becoming part of a new Newry and Mourne constituency. This was strongly opposed during the local enquiries and the eventual boundary review did not implement it. The constituency contains the entirety of the former Armagh district and the Newry half of the former Newry and Mourne district.

History

For the history of the equivalent constituency prior to 1983, please see Armagh.

The constituency is majority nationalist, though initially on its creation in 1983 Jim Nicholson of the Ulster Unionist Party won the seat due to the nationalist vote being divided between the Social Democratic and Labour Party and Sinn Féin. In 1986 Nicholson, along with all the other unionist MPs, resigned his seat in protest over the Anglo-Irish Agreement and stood in a by-election to provide voters the opportunity to decide on it. However the nationalist parties contested the seat and Seamus Mallon of the SDLP gained sufficient votes to outpoll Nicholson and win the seat. Mallon held it until his retirement in 2005.

The main attention has been upon the rise of the Sinn Féin vote. In the 2001 election they surged forward, cutting Mallon's majority drastically, as well as heavily outpolling the SDLP in the equivalent area local elections held on the same day. Then in the 2003 Assembly election Sinn Féin won three seats to the SDLP's one. Mallon stood down at the 2005 general election fearing the loss of his seat as was widely predicted among political pundits, the seat subsequently fell to Sinn Féin with Murphy out polling the SDLP by almost 8000 votes.

Newry is overwhelmingly nationalist, and was one of two districts in Northern Ireland to return a numerical majority of people identifying themselves as "Irish" at the 2011 census at 52.1% Irish. Armagh is more unionist, though it does have a larger proportion of people identifying as "Irish" in comparison to the Northern Ireland average at 44.4% "British" 32.4% "Irish".[2]

Members of Parliament

The Member of Parliament since the 2015 general election is Mickey Brady of Sinn Féin. He succeeded his party colleague, Conor Murphy who had gained the seat from the SDLP in 2005.

ElectionMember[3] PartyNotes
1983 Jim Nicholson UUP Resigned December 1985 in protest at the Anglo-Irish Agreement; defeated at subsequent by-election
1986 by-election Seamus Mallon SDLP Deputy Leader of the SDLP 1979-2001; deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland 1998-2001
2005 Conor Murphy Sinn Féin
2015 Mickey Brady Sinn Féin

Election results
Armagh election results

Elections in the 2010s
General election 2019: Newry and Armagh[4]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Sinn Féin Mickey Brady 20,287 40.0 −7.9
DUP William Irwin 11,000 21.7 −2.9
SDLP Pete Byrne 9,449 18.6 +1.7
Alliance Jackie Coade 4,211 8.3 +6.0
UUP Sam Nicholson 4,204 8.3 0.0
Aontú Martin Kelly 1,628 3.2 New
Majority 9,287 18.3 −5.0
Turnout 50,779 62.5 −6.0
Registered electors 81,246
Sinn Féin hold Swing
General election 2017: Newry and Armagh[5]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Sinn Féin Mickey Brady 25,666 47.9 +6.8
DUP William Irwin 13,177 24.6 New
SDLP Justin McNulty 9,055 16.9 −7.2
UUP Sam Nicholson 4,425 8.3 −24.4
Alliance Jackie Coade 1,256 2.3 +0.6
Majority 12,489 23.3 +14.9
Turnout 53,579 68.5 +4.3
Registered electors 78,266
Sinn Féin hold Swing
General election 2015: Newry and Armagh[6][7]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Sinn Féin Mickey Brady 20,488 41.1 −0.9
UUP Danny Kennedy[8] 16,312 32.7 +13.6
SDLP Justin McNulty 12,026 24.1 +0.7
Alliance Kate Nicholl 841 1.7 +0.5
NI Conservatives Robert Rigby 210 0.4 New
Majority 4,176 8.4 −10.2
Turnout 49,877 64.2 +3.8
Registered electors 77,633
Sinn Féin hold Swing −7.2
General election 2010: Newry and Armagh[9][10]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Sinn Féin Conor Murphy 18,857 42.0 +0.6
SDLP Dominic Bradley 10,526 23.4 −1.8
UCU-NF Danny Kennedy 8,558 19.1 +5.2
DUP William Irwin 5,764 12.8 −5.6
Independent Willie Frazer 656 1.5 New
Alliance Andrew Muir 545 1.2 New
Majority 8,331 18.6 +2.4
Turnout 44,906 60.4 −9.6
Registered electors 74,308
Sinn Féin hold Swing +1.2

Elections in the 2000s
General election 2005: Newry and Armagh[11]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Sinn Féin Conor Murphy 20,965 41.4 +10.5
SDLP Dominic Bradley 12,770 25.2 −12.2
DUP Paul Berry 9,311 18.4 −1.0
UUP Danny Kennedy 7,025 13.9 +1.6
Independent Gerry Markey 625 1.2 New
Majority 8,195 16.2 N/A
Turnout 50,696 70.0 −6.8
Registered electors 71,771
Sinn Féin gain from SDLP Swing +11.3
General election 2001: Newry and Armagh[12]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SDLP Seamus Mallon 20,784 37.4 −5.6
Sinn Féin Conor Murphy 17,209 30.9 +9.8
DUP Paul Berry 10,795 19.4 New
UUP Sylvia McRoberts 6,833 12.3 −21.5
Majority 3,575 6.5 -2.7
Turnout 55,621 76.8 +1.4
Registered electors 72,466
SDLP hold Swing -7.8

Elections in the 1990s
General election 1997: Newry and Armagh[13]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SDLP Seamus Mallon 22,904 43.0 −6.3
UUP Danny Kennedy 18,015 33.8 −2.5
Sinn Féin Patrick McNamee 11,218 21.1 +8.6
Alliance Peter Whitcroft 1,015 1.9 0.0
Natural Law David Evans 123 0.2 New
Majority 4,889 9.2 -3.8
Turnout 53,275 75.4 −2.5
Registered electors 70,807
SDLP hold Swing −1.9

1997 Changes are compared to the 1992 notional results shown below.[14]

Notional 1992 UK General Election Result: Newry and Armagh
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SDLP N/A 25,740 49.3 N/A
UUP N/A 18,930 36.3 N/A
Sinn Féin N/A 6,530 12.5 N/A
Alliance N/A 972 1.9 N/A
Majority 6,810 13.0 N/A
General election 1992: Newry and Armagh[15]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SDLP Seamus Mallon 26,073 49.6 +1.5
UUP Jim Speers 18,982 36.1 −1.8
Sinn Féin Brendan Curran 6,547 12.5 +0.7
Alliance Eileen Bell 972 1.8 +0.5
Majority 7,091 13.5 +3.3
Turnout 52,574 77.9 −1.3
Registered electors 67,531
SDLP hold Swing +1.7

Elections in the 1980s
General election 1987: Newry and Armagh[16]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SDLP Seamus Mallon 25,137 48.1 +11.3
UUP Jim Nicholson 19,812 37.9 −2.1
Sinn Féin Jim McAllister 6,173 11.8 −9.1
Alliance William Henry Jeffrey 664 1.3 New
Workers' Party Gerard O'Hanlon 482 0.9 −1.4
Majority 5,325 10.2 N/A
Turnout 52,268 79.2 +3.2
Registered electors 66,027
SDLP gain from UUP Swing +6.7
1986 Newry and Armagh by-election[17]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
SDLP Seamus Mallon 22,694 45.5 +8.7
UUP Jim Nicholson 20,111 40.3 +0.3
Sinn Féin Jim McAllister 6,609 13.2 −7.7
Workers' Party Patrick McCusker 515 1.0 −1.3
Majority 2,583 5.2 N/A
Turnout 49,929 76.9 +0.9
Registered electors 65,142
SDLP gain from UUP Swing +4.2
General election 1983: Newry and Armagh[18]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
UUP Jim Nicholson 18,988 40.0
SDLP Seamus Mallon 17,434 36.8
Sinn Féin Jim McAllister 9,928 20.9
Workers' Party Thomas Moore 1,070 2.3
Majority 1,554 3.2
Turnout 47,420 76.0
Registered electors 62,298
UUP win (new seat)

See also

References
  1. "'Newry and Armagh', June 1983 up to May 1997". ElectionWeb Project. Cognitive Computing Limited. Archived from the original on 14 March 2016. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
  2. Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, 2011 UK Census, National Identity (Classification 2) http://www.ninis2.nisra.gov.uk/public/pivotgrid.aspx?dataSetVars=ds-2427-lh-38-yn-2011-sk-136-sn-Census+2011-yearfilter--
  3. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "N" (part 2)
  4. "Newry & Armagh Parliamentary constituency". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
  5. "Election of a Member of Parliament for the NEWRY AND ARMAGH Constituency - Statement of Persons Nominated and Notice of Poll". Electoral Office of Northern Ireland. 11 May 2017. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
  6. "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  7. "The Electoral Office of Northern Ireland - EONI". www.eoni.org.uk.
  8. "Member of Parliament for Newry and Armagh". YourNextMP. Archived from the original on 23 February 2015. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
  9. "Election Data 2010". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 26 July 2013. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  10. "Statement of Persons Nominated" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 July 2011.
  11. "Election Data 2005". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  12. "Election Data 2001". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  13. "Election Data 1997". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  14. https://www.bbc.co.uk/election97/constituencies/426.htm
  15. "Election Data 1992". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  16. "Election Data 1987". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  17. "By-election Result". United Kingdom Election Results.
  18. "Election Data 1983". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.

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