Northern Ireland Assembly
On 20 March 1973, the British government published a white paper which proposed a 78-member Northern Ireland Assembly, to be elected by proportional representation. The British government would retain control over law, order and finance, while a Council of Ireland composed of members of the executive of the Republic of Ireland, the Dáil Éireann, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly would act in a consultative role. The assembly was to replace the suspended Stormont Parliament, but it was hoped that it would not be dominated by the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in the same way, and would thus be acceptable to nationalists.
The Northern Ireland Assembly Bill resulting from the White paper became law on 3 May 1973, and elections for the new assembly were held on 28 June. The agreement was supported by the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the unionist UUP and the moderate unionist and cross-community Alliance Party. The pro-agreement parties won a clear majority of seats (52 to 26), but a substantial minority inside the Ulster Unionist Party opposed the agreement.
Republicans boycotted the elections, and the IRA continued its campaign of opposition throughout the outcome.
Read more about this topic: Sunningdale Agreement
Famous quotes containing the words northern ireland, northern, ireland and/or assembly:
“... in Northern Ireland, if you don’t have basic Christianity, rather than merely religion, all you get out of the experience of living is bitterness.”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“I have found that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.”
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“The tragedy of Northern Ireland is that it is now a society in which the dead console the living.”
—Jack Holland (b. 1947)
“Our assembly being now formed not by ourselves but by the goodwill and sprightly imagination of our readers, we have nothing to do but to draw up the curtain ... and to discover our chief personage on the stage.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)