Fermanagh and South Tyrone (UK Parliament Constituency) - History

History

For the history of the constituency prior to 1950, see Fermanagh and Tyrone

Throughout its history, Fermanagh and South Tyrone has seen a precarious balance between unionist and nationalist voters, though in recent years the nationalists have had a slight majority. Many elections have seen a candidate from one community triumph due to multiple candidates from the other community splitting the vote.

Perhaps because of this balance between the communities, Fermanagh and South Tyrone has repeatedly had the highest turn-out of any constituency in Northern Ireland.

The seat was initially won by the Nationalist Party in 1950 and 1951, the closely contested 1951 election seeing a 93.4% turnout - a UK record for any election.

In 1955, the constituency was won by Philip Clarke of Sinn Féin, but he was unseated on petition on the basis that his criminal conviction (for IRA activity) made him ineligible. Instead, the seat was awarded to the Unionist candidate.

In 1970, the seat was won by Frank McManus standing on the "Unity" ticket which sought to unite nationalist voters behind a single candidate. In the February 1974 general election, however, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) contested the seat, dividing the nationalist vote and allowing Harry West of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) to win with the support of the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party.

In the October 1974 general election a nationalist pact was agreed and Frank Maguire won, standing as an Independent Republican. He retained his seat in the 1979 general election, when both the unionist and nationalist votes were split, the former by the intervention of Ernest Baird, leader of the short-lived United Ulster Unionist Party, and the latter by Austin Currie, who defied the official SDLP decision to not contest the seat. Maguire died in early 1981.

The ensuing by-election took place amidst the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike and was one of the most important by-elections in modern Irish history. As part of the campaign for the five demands, the Provisional Irish Republican Army officer commanding in the Maze prison, Bobby Sands, was nominated as an Anti-H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner candidate. Harry West stood for the Ulster Unionist Party but no other candidates contested the by-election. On 9 April 1981, Sands won with 30,492 votes against 29,046 for West. 26 days later Sands died on hunger strike. Speedy legislation barred prisoners serving 12 months or longer from standing for Parliament, and so in the new by-election Sands' agent Owen Carron stood as a "Proxy Political Prisoner". The UUP nominated Ken Maginnis. The second by-election in August was also contested by the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, the Workers' Party Republican Clubs, a candidate standing on a label of General Amnesty and another as The Peace Lover. The turn-out was even higher, with most of the additional votes going to the additional parties standing, and Carron was elected. In the 1982 elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly, Carron headed up the Sinn Féin slate for the constituency and was elected.

Republicans suffered a reversal in the 1983 general election, when the SDLP contested the seat. Maginnis won and held the seat for the UUP for the next eighteen years until he retired. By this point boundary changes had resulted in a broad 50:50 balance between unionists and nationalists and it was expected that a single unionist candidate would hold the seat in the 2001 general election. James Cooper was nominated by the UUP. On this occasion, however, it was the unionist vote that was to be split. Initially Maurice Morrow of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was nominated to stand, with the DUP fiercely opposing the UUP's support for the Good Friday Agreement. Morrow, then withdrew in favour of Jim Dixon, a survivor of the Enniskillen bombing who stood as an Independent Unionist opposed to the Agreement. Dixon polled 6,843 votes, 6,790 in excess of the 53 vote lead that Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew had over Cooper. Subsequently, the result was challenged amid allegations that a polling station had been kept open by force for longer than the deadline, allowing more people to vote, but the courts - while conceding that this happened, did not uphold the challenge because it held that the votes cast after the legal closing time would not have affected the outcome.

Ahead of the 2005 general election, there was speculation that a single unionist candidate could retake the seat. The UUP and DUP, however, ran opposing candidates and in the event Gildernew held her seat. She kept the seat in 2010 by four votes over the Unionist candidate, Rodney Connor. Following the election, Connor lodged an election petition challenging the result based on a dispute about differences in the number of ballot papers recorded at polling stations and those subsequently recorded at the count centre. The petition was rejected after it was found that only three extra votes remained unnaccounted for. The judge ruled that "even if those votes were introduced in breach of the rules and if they had all been counted in favour of the first respondent their exclusion would still have given the first respondent (Ms Gildernew) a majority of one vote and the result would not have been affected."