Newry and Armagh (UK Parliament constituency)

Newry & Armagh is a Parliamentary Constituency in the House of Commons and also an Assembly constituency in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Boundaries

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. In boundary changes in 1995 the seat was barely changed. It contains the entirity of Armagh district and the Newry half of Newry and Mourne district.

Proposed Boundary changes

At the time of writing the Boundary Commission has published provisional recommendations for modifying the boundaries of constituencies in Northern Ireland. For Newry & Armagh, it proposes to transfer part of Newry to South Down. It is possible that this will be challenged in a round of public consultations or that the constituency name may be modified.

Westminster elections

The Member of Parliament since a 1986 by-election is Seamus Mallon of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. In that election he defeated Jim Nicholson of the Ulster Unionist Party who had represented Newry & Armagh since 1983. Nicholson had resigned his seat to hold a by-election on the Anglo Irish Agreement but was not returned..

Assembly and Forum elections

The six MLAs for the consituency elected in the 2003 election are:

In the 1998 election the six MLAs elected were:

In the 1996 election to the Northern Ireland Peace Forum, 5 Forum members were elected from Newry & Armagh. They were as follows:

Politics and History of the constituency

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

The constituency is overwhelming 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 Fein. 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 has held it ever since.

The unionist vote in the constituency has declined somewhat in recent years, with the shift being more marked as both the Ulster Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party now stand. The main attention has been upon the rise of the Sinn Fein vote. In the 2001 they surged forward, cutting Mallon's majority drasticaly. Then in the 2003 Assembly election Sinn Fein won three seats to the SDLP's single one. There is much speculation that Sinn Fein may gain the seat at the next general election. One potential deciding factor are the unionist voters, who may decide to tactically support the SDLP.