The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland is a liberal and nonsectarian political party in Northern Ireland. It is Northern Ireland's fifth-largest party overall, with eight seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly and one in the House of Commons.
Founded in 1970 from the New Ulster Movement, the Alliance Party originally represented moderate and non-sectarian Unionism. However, over time, particularly in the 1990s, it moved towards neutrality on the Union, and has come to represent wider liberal and non-sectarian concerns. It opposes consociational power sharing as deepening the sectarian divide, and, in the Northern Ireland Assembly, it is designated as neither unionist nor nationalist, but 'Other'.
In May 2010 the Alliance Party won their first Westminster seat in a General Election, in Belfast East, unseating Peter Robinson, leader of the DUP and First Minister of Northern Ireland. Naomi Long, the successful candidate, is the first MP from the Alliance Party since Stratton Mills who had joined the party from the Ulster Unionist Party in 1973.
Read more about Alliance Party Of Northern Ireland: Aims and Objectives, Philosophy, Regionalisation of Alliance's Vote, Leaders of Alliance, Deputy Leaders, MPs, MLAs, Young Alliance and Alliance Youth
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“... 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)
“In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can’t long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
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—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)
“Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“Out of Ireland have we come,
Great hatred, little room
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother’s womb
A fanatic’s heart.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)