Catholic Unionist - Catholic Unionists

Catholic Unionists

• Richard Doherty, author, military historian and RUC reservist from County Londonderry.
• Sir John Gorman, a Catholic Ulster Unionist Party delegate.
• General Sir John Winthrop Hackett. Known as 'Shan' Hackett, he was born in Australia to Irish Catholic parents. Hackett was a professional soldier in the British Army. He served as Commander in Chief of the British Army of the Rhine and later as Commander of the Northern Army Group for NATO. He also wrote the best seller The Third World War, a work of fiction that laid out a "what if" scenario of a possible conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the 1980s. He had a home in County Donegal.
• Edward Haughey, Baron Ballyedmond, OBE. Educated by the Irish Christian Brothers in Dundalk; self-made pharmaceutical tycoon who served as a nominee of Taoiseach Charles Haughey in Seanad Éireann.
• Sir Denis Henry, was born in County Londonderry in 1864. A son of prosperous Catholic businessman, he was elected MP for South Londonderry in 1916 and later served as Solicitor-General for Ireland and then as the First Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland.

Many prominent members of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland have been Catholics, including the majority of its past leaders (such as John Cushnahan, Oliver Napier and Sean Neeson), some of its Deputy Leaders (such as Seamus Close and Eileen Bell), former MP Thomas Columba Gormley, as well as three of its seven current Assembly members. The Alliance Party is not, as such, a Unionist party, as its support for the Union is based purely on that being the wishes of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland.