Career
He was a member of Magherafelt District Council from its creation in 1973 until standing down to concentrate on Westminster duties in 2010, and topped the poll in every local government election he contested in the 1973-2005 period.
He ran unsuccessfully for the 1982 Belfast South by-election. He was member of Parliament for Mid Ulster from 1983 but lost this seat to Sinn Féin chief negotiator and current Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness at the 1997 election. He took South Antrim at a by-election in 2000 caused by the death of Ulster Unionist Party MP, Clifford Forsythe, but failed to retain this seat at the 2001 election. In the 2005 election he regained the seat.
From 1998 to 2007 he was a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Mid Ulster. At the 2007 election, he was elected as Assembly Member for South Antrim. He resigned from the Assembly in 2010, following his return to Westminster at the general election of that year.
He is also the minister of Magherafelt Free Presbyterian Church and has made numerous gospel albums. As a result of his musical endeavours, he has been nicknamed "The Singing Nun."
He was a member of the Shankill Defence Association and in 1971 he was convicted of riotous behaviour in Dungiven. In 1975 he led a prayer service at the paramilitary funerals of Wesley Somerville and Harris Boyle. The two men were part of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) gang that had carried out the Miami Showband killings and were accidentally blown up when the bomb they had planted in the band's minibus went off prematurely, killing them instantly. He was the target of a parcel bomb to his home on 9 August 1988 when a package sent by the Irish Peoples Liberation Organisation was disarmed. McCrea had become suspicious when he noticed the package had a Dublin postmark.
McCrea was criticised when he shared a platform at a Portadown rally with the senior loyalist paramilitary Billy Wright in September 1996.
In a 2012 interview he revealed the details of three asassination attempts by the IRA.One such attempt was aborted due to one of the potential gunmen having changed his mind because of previous political help McCrea had carried out for his parents.The IRA member informed the police who then sent a patrol to observe McCrea's home.
Read more about this topic: William McCrea (politician)
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