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133-571: The Democratic Unionist Party ( DUP ) is a unionist , loyalist , British nationalist and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland . It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley , who led the party for the next 37 years. It is currently led by Gavin Robinson , who initially stepped in as an interim after the resignation of Jeffrey Donaldson . It is
266-650: A devolved region within the United Kingdom and to resist the prospect of an all-Ireland republic . Within the framework of the 1998 Belfast Agreement , which concluded three decades of political violence, unionists have shared office with Irish nationalists in a reformed Northern Ireland Assembly . As of February 2024, they no longer do so as the larger faction: they serve in an executive with an Irish republican ( Sinn Féin ) First Minister . Unionism became an overarching partisan affiliation in Ireland late in
399-549: A perverse incentive to use more energy and increase their carbon footprint to those who signed up to it since they could claim £1.60 for every £1 spent on heating with, for example, wood pellets. With no cost controls, it could cost the public purse up to £490 million. Foster refused calls to step down as First Minister over her alleged role in the RHI scandal. In January 2017 this led Martin McGuinness to resign in protest and
532-796: A 19-year-old man, and alleged serious financial irregularities associated with the scandal. In the 2010 general election , the party suffered a major upset when its leader, Peter Robinson, lost his Belfast East seat to Naomi Long of the APNI on a swing of 22.9%. However, the party maintained its position elsewhere, fighting off a challenge from the Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force in Antrim South and Strangford and from Jim Allister's Traditional Unionist Voice in Antrim North . The DUP were strongly criticised after
665-650: A Belfast parliament (they did not develop an express nationalism of their own), but in summarising The Case Against Home Rule (1912), L. S. Amery did insist that "if Irish Nationalism constitutes a nation, then Ulster is a nation too". Faced with the eventual enactment of Home Rule, Carson appeared to press this argument. On 28 September 1912, Ulster Day, he was the first to sign, in Belfast City Hall, Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant . This bound signatories "to stand by one another in defending for ourselves and our children our position of equal citizenship in
798-523: A Catholic tradition of support for the union, focused on the value of stability and of empire, survived the first home-rule crisis. But it did not share the majority unionist conviction that any measure of devolution within the United Kingdom must lead to separation. Nor did it supply unionism with the equivalent of the Protestants who, individually, played a prominent role in home-rule and separatist politics. A handful of Irish Conservatives, drawn from
931-552: A Catholic, had helped devise a scheme for administrative devolution involving an Irish council of both elected and nominated members. Balfour, now prime minister, was obliged to disavow the scheme and Wyndham, pressed to deny his complicity, resigned. The uproar assisted the Liberal return to office in December. The road to Catholicism's identification with constitutional Irish nationalism was "far from smooth and immediate", and
1064-648: A DUP fundraiser in May 2018, with his main financial backer, Arron Banks , stating that he would support a bid by Farage to seek office as a DUP candidate after the end of his tenure as Member of the European Parliament in 2019. In her capacity as Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in 2012, Foster oversaw the establishment of a green energy scheme, which led to the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal (RHI scandal). The scheme gave
1197-493: A Protestant loyalist volunteer militia —called the (Ulster) Third Force —which would work alongside the police and army to fight the Irish Republican Army (IRA). They organized large rallies where men were photographed in military formation waving firearms certificates . Paisley declared: "This is a small token of the men who are placed to devastate any attempt by Margaret Thatcher and Charles Haughey to destroy
1330-405: A The Government of Ireland Bill that was largely of his own drafting. Unionists were not persuaded by his inclusion of measures to limit the remit of a Dublin legislature and to reduce the weight of the popular vote (the 200 or so popularly elected members were to sit in session with 28 Irish Peers and a further 75 Members elected on a highly restrictive property franchise). Regardless of how it
1463-552: A Tory PM." The DUP would later withdraw their support over new Prime Minister Boris Johnson's revised proposal for a deal with the EU. At the 2019 UK general election , the DUP lost vote share and lost two of its seats. Due to the RHI scandal and deadlock between the DUP and Sinn Féin, Northern Ireland did not have an Executive and the Assembly did not meet for three years. In January 2020,
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#17327874153021596-447: A basis of moving forward to devolution?", with responses to be received to its party headquarters by 8 November. It was part of the party's policy of consultation with its electorate before entering a power-sharing government. On 24 November 2006, Ian Paisley refused to nominate himself as First Minister of Northern Ireland designate. There was confusion between all parties whether he actually said that if Sinn Féin supported policing and
1729-552: A campaign of mass civil disobedience . There were strikes and mass protest rallies. On 23 June 1986, DUP politicians occupied the Stormont Parliament Building in protest at the Agreement, while 200 supporters protested outside and clashed with police. The DUP politicians were forcibly removed by police the next day. On 10 July, Paisley and deputy DUP leader Peter Robinson led 4,000 loyalist supporters in
1862-694: A conquered community and nothing else". By July 1914, the Ulster Covenant had been complemented by a British Covenant organised by Alfred Milner through the Union Defence League . Nearly two million signatories declared themselves willing to "supporting any action that may be effective" to prevent the people of Ulster being deprived "of their rights as citizens of the United Kingdom". Gavin Robinson Gavin James Robinson (born 22 November 1984)
1995-527: A constructive course. He pursued reforms intended, as some saw it, to kill home rule with "kindness". For the express purpose of relieving poverty and reducing emigration, in the Congested Districts of the west Balfour initiated a programme not only of public works, but of subsidy for local craft industries. Headed by the former Unionist MP for South Dublin , Horace Plunkett , a new Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction broke with
2128-473: A deal whereby his close ally, Paul Givan , would become First Minister. In return, he would let Westminster pass Irish language law for Northern Ireland, which the DUP had earlier agreed to implement by signing the New Decade, New Approach agreement. Most DUP MLAs opposed Poots's decision, forcing him to step down. On 22 June, Jeffrey Donaldson was confirmed to be succeeding Poots, as the only candidate in
2261-801: A low-level tenant-landlord war came to Westminster in 1852 when the all-Ireland Tenant Right League helped return 48 MPs to Westminster where they sat as the Independent Irish Party . What the Young Irelander Gavan Duffy called the League of North and South soon fell apart. In the South the Church approved the Catholic MPs breaking their pledge of independent opposition and accepting government positions. In
2394-660: A minority within the United Kingdom may have passed. In 1830, the leader of the Catholic Association , Daniel O'Connell , invited Protestants to join in a campaign to repeal the Union and restore the Kingdom of Ireland under the Constitution of 1782 . At the same time, the security in Ireland for emancipation was a fivefold increase in the threshold for the property franchise . O'Connell's Protestant ally in
2527-593: A political settlement for Northern Ireland. In the election to the convention, the UUUC (which included the DUP) won 53% of the vote. The UUUC opposed a power-sharing government and recommended only a return to majority rule (i.e. unionist rule). As this was unacceptable to nationalists, the convention was dissolved. The DUP opposed UK membership of the European Economic Community (EEC). In June 1979, in
2660-462: A protest in which they 'occupied' the town of Hillsborough . Hillsborough Castle is where the Agreement had been signed. On 7 August, Robinson led hundreds of loyalist supporters in an invasion of the village of Clontibret , in the Republic of Ireland. The loyalists marched up and down the main street, vandalised property, and attacked two Irish police officers ( Gardaí ) before fleeing back over
2793-659: A separation of north and south, with Belfast as the capital of its own "distinct kingdom". In response to the First Home rule Bill in 1886, Radical Unionists (Liberals who proposed federalising the relationship between all countries of the United Kingdom) likewise argued that "the Protestant part of Ulster should receive special treatment . . . on grounds identical with those that support the general contention for Home Rule" Ulster Protestants expressed no interest in
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#17327874153022926-630: A stroke in 1898 to democratically elected councils), the old landlord class had the terms of their retirement fixed by the Wyndham Land Act of 1903. This reduced, but did not in itself resolve, agrarian tensions, even in the north. In 1906, Thomas Russell, MP , the son of an evicted Scottish crofter , broke with the Conservatives in the Irish Unionist Alliance to be returned to Westminster from South Tyrone as
3059-520: A subsequent trial, WPSU organiser Dorothy Evans created an uproar by demanding to know why James Craig, then arming Ulster Volunteers with German rifles, was not appearing on the same weapons and explosives charges. In August 1914, suffragists in Ulster suspended their agitation for the duration of the European war. Their reward was a women's franchise in 1918 and (six years after it was granted in
3192-628: A trade regime, the Northern Ireland Protocol , that advances an all-Ireland agenda. In February 2024, two years after their withdrawal collapsed the devolved institutions, on the basis of new British government assurances they returned to the Assembly to form the first Northern Ireland government in which unionists are a minority. In the last decades of the Kingdom of Ireland (1542–1800), Protestants in public life advanced themselves as Irish Patriots. The focus of their patriotism
3325-702: Is a Northern Irish unionist politician and barrister who has served as Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) since March 2024. He served as Deputy DUP Leader from June 2023 to May 2024. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Belfast East in the UK House of Commons since the 2015 general election . He was Lord Mayor of Belfast in 2012–2013. Robinson is the DUP Spokesperson for Defence and Home Affairs . Robinson
3458-715: Is a lifelong East Belfast resident. He attended Grosvenor Grammar School in East Belfast, and then Ulster University where he obtained a degree in law and government, before attending Queen's University Belfast , where he attained a Masters in Irish Politics before commencing practice as a barrister. Raised a Presbyterian , he currently attends the Church of Ireland . Robinson was co-opted to Belfast City Council in March 2010 to replace Sammy Wilson in representing
3591-514: Is a political tradition that professes loyalty to the crown of the United Kingdom and to the union it represents with England , Scotland and Wales . The overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority , unionism mobilised in the decades following Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to oppose restoration of a separate Irish parliament . Since Partition in 1921, as Ulster unionism its goal has been to retain Northern Ireland as
3724-727: Is also Eurosceptic and supported Brexit . The DUP evolved from the Protestant Unionist Party and has historically strong links to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster , the church Paisley founded. During the Troubles , the DUP opposed sharing power with Irish nationalists or republicans as a means of resolving the conflict, and likewise rejected attempts to involve the Republic of Ireland in Northern Irish affairs. It campaigned against
3857-569: The 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly election , the DUP argued for a "fair deal" that could command the support of both unionists and nationalists. After the results of this election the DUP argued that support was no longer present within unionism for the Good Friday Agreement. They went on to publish their proposals for devolution in Ireland entitled Devolution Now . These proposals have been refined and re-stated in further policy documents including Moving on and Facing Reality . In
3990-771: The American War of Independence , of the Irish Volunteers and, as that militia paraded in Dublin, the securing in 1782 of the parliament's legislative independence from the British government in London. In the north-east, combinations of Presbyterian tradesmen, merchants, and tenant farmers protested against the unrepresentative parliament and against an executive in Dublin Castle still appointed, through
4123-718: The Conservative and Orange-Order candidates of the landed Ascendancy . But as the Irish party-political successors to O'Connell's Repeal movement gained representation and influence in Westminster, Cooke's call for unity was to be heeded in the progressive emergence of a pan-Protestant unionism. Up to, and through, the Great Famine of the 1840s, successive governments, Whig and Tory, had refused political responsibility for agrarian conditions in Ireland. The issues of
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4256-689: The Irish Free State ) equal voting rights in 1928 . In 1911 a Liberal administration was once again dependent on Irish nationalist MPs. In 1912 the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith , introduced the Third Home Rule Bill . A more generous dispensation than the earlier bills, it would, for the first time, have given an Irish parliament an accountable executive. It was carried in the Commons by a majority of ten. As expected, it
4389-613: The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP). In his first ministry (1868-1874), the Liberal premier William Ewart Gladstone had attempted conciliation. In 1869, he disestablished the Church of Ireland , and in 1870 introduced the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act . In both measures conservative jurists identified threats to the integrity of the union. Disestablishment reneged on the promise of "one Protestant Episcopal Church" for both Britain and Ireland under Article V of
4522-480: The Irish Trades Union Congress as tantamount to support for Home Rule. Yet loyalist workers resented the idea that they were the retainers of "big-house unionists". A manifesto signed in the spring of 1914 by two thousand labour men, rejected the suggestion of the radical and socialist press that Ulster was being manipulated by "an aristocratic plot". If Sir Edward Carson led in the battle for
4655-636: The Loyalist Anti-Repeal Union —sought to connect. With Gladstone's conversion to home rule, politicians who had held aloof from the Order now embraced its militancy. Colonel Edward Saunderson , who had represented Cavan as a Liberal, donned an Orange sash "because", he said "the Orange society is alone capable of dealing with the condition of anarchy and rebellion which prevail in Ireland". In February 1886, playing, in his own words,
4788-617: The Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s, the DUP was initially involved in the negotiations under former United States Senator George J. Mitchell that led to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, but withdrew in protest when Sinn Féin, an Irish republican party with links to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), was allowed to participate while the IRA kept its weapons. The DUP opposed
4921-706: The Pottinger electoral area of South and East Belfast. He was returned to the council as an alderman in the 2011 local elections and elected Lord Mayor by the council for the year beginning 1 June 2012. He was a member of the East Belfast District Policing and Community Safety Partnership subgroup and represented the council on the boards of the Ulster Orchestra and the 2013 World Police and Fire Games held in Belfast. He won
5054-556: The Red Sky scandal in which DUP ministers attempted to influence a decision at a meeting of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive . The decision related to an £8 million contract of east Belfast firm Red Sky. The Housing Executive cancelled Red Sky's contract after a BBC Spotlight investigation into the company, which was shown to be overcharging taxpayers. The DUP cited "sectarian bias" in relation to
5187-590: The Republic of Ireland , by successive British governments. Following the 1998 Belfast Agreement , under which both republican and loyalist paramilitaries committed to permanent ceasefires, unionists accepted principles of joint office and parallel consent in a new Northern Ireland legislature and executive. Renegotiated in 2006, relations within this consociational arrangement remained fraught. Unionists, with diminishing electoral strength, charged their nationalist partners in government with pursuing an anti-British cultural agenda and, post- Brexit , with supporting
5320-738: The Sunningdale Agreement of 1973, the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. In the 1980s, the DUP was involved in setting up the loyalist paramilitary movements Third Force and Ulster Resistance , the latter of which helped smuggle a large shipment of weapons into Northern Ireland. For most of the DUP's history, the Ulster Unionist Party was the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland; however, by 2004,
5453-487: The Ulster Unionist Council was established to bring together unionists in the north including, with 50 of 200 seats, the Orange Order . Until then, unionism had largely placed itself behind Anglo-Irish aristocrats valued for their high-level connections in Great Britain . The UUC still accorded them a degree of precedence. Castlereagh's descendant and former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , The 6th Marquess of Londonderry , presided over its executive. The Council also retained
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5586-447: The Ulster Unionist Party . Paisley, a well-known Protestant fundamentalist minister, was the founder and leader of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster . He would lead both the DUP and the Free Presbyterian Church for the next 37 years, and his party and church would be closely linked. When the DUP formed, Northern Ireland was in the midst of an ethnic-nationalist conflict known as the Troubles , which began in 1969 and would last for
5719-525: The first election to the European Parliament , Paisley won one of the three Northern Ireland seats. He topped the poll, with 29.8% of the first preference votes. He retained that seat in every European election until 2004, when he was replaced by Jim Allister , who resigned from the DUP in 2007 while retaining his seat. During 1981, the DUP opposed the then-ongoing talks between British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Taoiseach Charles Haughey . That year, Paisley and other DUP members attempted to create
5852-443: The partition settlement of 1921 by which the rest of Ireland attained separate statehood , Ulster unionists accepted a home-rule dispensation for the six north-east counties remaining in the United Kingdom. For the next 50 years, the Ulster Unionist Party exercised the devolved powers of the Northern Ireland Parliament with little domestic opposition and outside of the governing party-political system at Westminster . In 1972,
5985-413: The "Orange card", Lord Randolph Churchill assured a "monster meeting" of the Anti-Repeal Union in Belfast, that English Conservatives would "cast in their lot" with loyalists in resisting Home Rule, and he later coined the phrase that was to become the watchword of northern unionism: "Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right". Gladstone's own party was split on Home Rule and the House divided against
6118-416: The 1887 Act creating a new city-status municipal franchise for Belfast (piloted through the Commons by William Johnston ) conferred the vote on persons rather than men. This was eleven years before women elsewhere Ireland gained the vote in local government elections. The WSS had not been impressed by the women's Ulster Declaration or by the Ulster Women's Unionist Council (UWUC)—with over 100,000 members
6251-416: The 1980s and 1990s, DUP councillors attempted to exclude Sinn Féin councillors by ignoring them, boycotting their speeches, or drowning them out by making as much noise as possible – such as by heckling and banging tables. In early January 1994, the UDA released a document calling for the repartition of Ireland with the goal of making Northern Ireland wholly Protestant. The plan was to be implemented should
6384-401: The 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly election, the DUP won 30 seats, the most of any party. In January 2004, it became the largest Northern Ireland party at Westminster , when MP Jeffrey Donaldson joined after defecting from the UUP. In December 2004, English MP Andrew Hunter took the DUP whip after earlier withdrawing from the Conservative Party , giving the party seven seats, in comparison to
6517-428: The Act of Union (the Ulster Protestant Defence Association claimed breach of contract), and weak as they were, provisions for tenant compensation and purchase created a separate agrarian regime for Ireland at odds with the prevailing English conception of property rights. In the Long Depression of the 1870s the Land War intensified. From 1879 it was organised by the direct-action Irish National Land League , led by
6650-402: The Agreement in the Good Friday Agreement referendum , in which the Agreement was approved with 71.1% of the electorate in favour. The DUP's opposition was based on a number of reasons, including: The DUP contested the 1998 Northern Ireland Assembly election that resulted from the Good Friday Agreement, winning 20 seats, the third-highest of any party. It then took up two of the ten seats in
6783-436: The British Army withdraw from Northern Ireland. The Irish Catholic/nationalist-majority areas would be handed over to the Republic, and those left in the rump state would be "expelled, nullified , or interned ". DUP press officer Sammy Wilson spoke positively of the document, calling it a "valuable return to reality" and lauded the UDA for "contemplating what needs to be done to maintain our separate Ulster identity". During
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#17327874153026916-413: The British government suspended this arrangement. Against a background of growing political violence, and citing the need to consider how Catholics in Northern Ireland could be integrated into its civic and political life, it prorogued the parliament in Belfast. Over the ensuing three decades of The Troubles , unionists divided in their responses to power-sharing proposals presented, in consultation with
7049-411: The British mainland, but not Northern Ireland, advocating a 'Leave' vote. On 4 October 2016, First Minister Arlene Foster and DUP MPs held a champagne reception at the Conservative Party conference , marking what some have described as an "informal coalition" or an "understanding" between the two parties to account for the Conservatives' narrow majority in the House of Commons . The relationship between
7182-406: The Catholic gentry , were returned to the Commons before the 1884 Reform Act. A "unique place" was occupied by Sir Denis Henry (1864-1925). When he won his native South Londonderry seat in a 1916 by-election, he was the first Catholic to represent a unionist constituency in Ulster, and when he retained the seat in 1918, the future Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland was the last. In 1905,
7315-608: The Church of Rome", then undergoing its own devotional revolution. The leading Presbyterian evangelist, Henry Cooke took the occasion to preach Protestant Unity. In 1834, at a mass demonstration hosted upon his estate by the 3rd Marquess of Downshire , Cooke proposed a "Christian marriage" between the two main Protestant denominations (Anglican and Presbyterian). Setting their remaining differences aside, they would cooperate on all "matters of common safety". Presbyterian voters tended to favour reform-minded Whigs or, as they later emerged, tenant-right and free-trade Liberals , over
7448-407: The DUP had overtaken the UUP in terms of seats in both the Northern Ireland Assembly and the UK House of Commons . In 2006, the DUP co-signed the St Andrews Agreement and the following year agreed to enter into power-sharing devolved government with Sinn Féin , who agreed to support the Police Service , courts, and rule of law. Paisley became joint First Minister of Northern Ireland . However,
7581-458: The DUP held its first ever leadership election in May 2021, with Edwin Poots becoming leader after narrowly defeating Jeffrey Donaldson. This caused a fracture in the party. Some DUP members spoke of their "disgust" at the way in which Foster had been ousted. There were claims that Poots supporters engaged in bullying and intimidation during the leadership election, and some party members walked out before his speech. Police also investigated claims
7714-414: The DUP on 27 seats, the same number as Sinn Féin. In the 2017 UK general election, the DUP had 10 seats overall, 3 seats ahead of Sinn Féin. With no party having received an outright majority in the UK Parliament, the DUP entered into an agreement to support government by the Conservative Party. A DUP source said: "The alternative is intolerable. For as long as Corbyn leads Labour, we will ensure there’s
7847-473: The DUP over the issue, Traditional Unionist Voice , a seat which he retained until Diane Dodds won the seat back for the DUP in 2009. MP Gregory Campbell warned on 6 April 2007 that his party would be watching to see if benefits flow from its agreement to share power with Sinn Féin. On 31 May 2008, the party's central Executive Committee met at the offices of Castlereagh Borough Council where Ian Paisley formally stepped down as party leader and Peter Robinson
7980-441: The DUP said that it had cut its links with the URM in 1987. In the mid-1980s, the Irish republican party Sinn Féin began to contest and win seats in local council elections. In response, the DUP fought elections under the slogan "Smash Sinn Féin" and vowed to exclude Sinn Féin councillors from all council business. Their 1985 manifesto said "The Sinn Féiners must be ostracised and isolated" at all local government bodies. Throughout
8113-409: The DUP's only Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Jim Allister , and seven DUP councillors left the party in protest, founding the Traditional Unionist Voice . Ian Paisley was succeeded as DUP leader and First Minister by Peter Robinson (2008–2015), then by Arlene Foster (2015–2021). After Foster was ousted, Edwin Poots briefly became leader and nominated Paul Givan as First Minister, but
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#17327874153028246-469: The Government's deadline of 26 March, but did agree to setting up an executive on 8 May 2007. On 27 March 2007, the party's sole Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Jim Allister , resigned from the party, in opposition to the decision to enter a power-sharing government with Sinn Féin. He retained his seat as an independent MEP as leader of his new hard-line anti-St Andrews Agreement splinter group that he formed with other disaffected members who had left
8379-408: The House of Commons Andrea Leadsom , Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, former International Development Secretary Priti Patel , Sports Minister Tracey Crouch , Defence Select Committee chair Julian Lewis , and European Research Group chair Jacob Rees-Mogg headlined various fundraising events for the DUP from 2017 onwards. Former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage also spoke at
8512-436: The IRA ourselves!" In December, Paisley claimed that the Third Force had 15,000–20,000 members. James Prior , Secretary of State for Northern Ireland , replied that private armies would not be tolerated. The Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed by the British and Irish governments in November 1985, following months of talks between the two. The Agreement confirmed there would be no change in the status of Northern Ireland without
8645-470: The North, the Protestant tenant righters, William Sharman Crawford and James MacKnight had their election meetings broken up by Orangemen . For unionism the more momentous challenge lay in the wake of the Reform Act 1867 . In England and Wales it produced an electorate that no longer identified instinctively with the conservative interest in Ireland and was more open to the "home-rule" compromise that nationalists now presented. Ireland would remain within
8778-416: The Northern Ireland Executive collapsed. A snap election followed after Sinn Féin refused to re-nominate a deputy First Minister. In this Northern Ireland Assembly election , held in March 2017, the DUP lost 10 seats, leaving them only one seat and 1,200 votes ahead of Sinn Féin, a result described by the Belfast Telegraph as "catastrophic". The withdrawal of the party whip from Jim Wells in May 2018 left
8911-401: The Rev Ian Paisley", amongst other offers, to secure the bill. Members of the DUP were lambasted by the press and voters, after MPs' expenses reports were leaked to the media. Several newspapers referred to the "Swish Family Robinson" after Peter Robinson, and his wife Iris, claimed £571,939.41 in expenses with a further £150,000 being paid to family members. Further embarrassment was caused to
9044-433: The South. The British government, which had had to deploy its own forces to suppress the rebellion in Ireland and to turn back and defeat French intervention, decided on a union with Great Britain. Provision for Catholic emancipation was dropped from the Act of Union pushed with difficulty through the parliament in Dublin. While a separate Irish executive in Dublin was retained, representation, still wholly Protestant,
9177-411: The URM helped smuggle a large shipment of weapons into Northern Ireland, which were shared out between the URM, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Most, but not all, of the weaponry was seized by police in 1988. In 1989, URM members attempted to trade Shorts ' missile blueprints for weapons from the apartheid South African regime. Following these revelations,
9310-407: The UUP and its founding arguably stemmed from worries of the Ulster Protestant working class that the UUP was not paying them enough heed. The DUP opposed the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973. The Agreement was an attempt to resolve the conflict by setting up a new assembly and government for Northern Ireland in which unionists and Irish nationalists would share power. The Agreement also proposed
9443-420: The UUP's five, Sinn Féin's four, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party 's (SDLP) three. In the 2005 UK general election , the party reinforced its position as the largest unionist party, winning nine seats, making it the fourth largest party in terms of seats in the British House of Commons behind Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. In terms of votes, the DUP was the fourth largest party on
9576-670: The UWUC that draft articles for an Ulster Provisional Government included votes for women. The nationalists would make no such undertaking with regard to a Dublin parliament. The marriage was short lived. In March 1914, Carson , after being door-stepped for fours days by the WSPU, ruled women's suffrage too divisive an issue for unionists. There followed a series of arson-attacks on unionist-owned and associated property that culminated in Lillian Metge 's bombing of Lisburn Cathedral . In
9709-492: The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) threatened members of Donaldson's campaign team. Poots admitted party members were "bruised" but denied claims of intimidation. Several party members resigned, including councillors. On 17 June 21 days after becoming DUP leader, Poots announced he would be resigning after an internal party revolt. He said he would stay in post until a successor was elected. He had agreed
9842-530: The Ulster Women's Declaration; 237,368 men signed the Solemn League and Covenant . Unionist women had been involved in political campaigning from the time of the first Home Rule Bill in 1886. Some were active suffragettes . Isabella Tod , an anti-Home Rule Liberal and campaigner for girls education, was an early pioneer. Determined lobbying by her North of Ireland Women's Suffrage Society ensured
9975-842: The Union it was "because we, the workers, the people, the democracy of Ulster, have chosen him". The majority of the signatories would have been organised in British-based unions, and could point to the growing political weight of British labour in reform measures such as the Trade Disputes Act 1906 , the People's Budget 1910 , and the National Insurance Act 1911 . Nationalists did not seek to persuade them that collective bargaining, progressive taxation and social security were principles for which majorities could be as readily found in an Irish parliament. At what
10108-528: The Union". The DUP helped organize a loyalist 'Day of Action' on 23 November 1981, to pressure the British government to take a harder line against the IRA. Paisley addressed a Third Force rally in Newtownards , where thousands of masked and uniformed men marched before him. He declared: "My men are ready to be recruited under the crown to destroy the vermin of the IRA. But if they refuse to recruit them, then we will have no other decision to make but to destroy
10241-471: The United Kingdom but with a parliament in Dublin exercising powers devolved from Westminster. Meanwhile, in Ireland, a combination of the secret ballot and increased representation for the towns, reduced the electoral influence of land owners and their agents, and contributed to the triumph, in 1874 , of the Home Rule League . Fifty-nine members were returned to Westminster where they sat as
10374-485: The United Kingdom, and in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland". In January 1913, Carson declared for the exclusion of Ulster and called for the enlistment of up to 100,000 Covenanters as drilled and armed Ulster Volunteers . On 23 September, the second Ulster Day, he accepted Chairmanship of a Provisional Government organised by Craig. If Home Rule were imposed "we will be governed as
10507-575: The bill, which did allow for Irish MPs, was passed by a narrow majority in the Commons but went down to defeat in the overwhelmingly Conservative House of Lords . The Conservatives formed a new ministry. Gladstone's Tory successor in 1886, Lord Salisbury , believed his government should "leave Home Rule sleeping the sleep of the unjust". In 1887 Dublin Castle was given standing power to suspend habeas corpus . However, as Chief Secretary for Ireland , Salisbury's nephew Arthur Balfour determined upon
10640-598: The border. Robinson was arrested and convicted for unlawful assembly . On 10 November 1986, a rally was held in which DUP politicians Paisley, Robinson and Ivan Foster announced the formation of the Ulster Resistance Movement (URM). This was a loyalist paramilitary group whose purpose was to "take direct action as and when required" to bring down the Agreement and defeat republicanism. Recruitment rallies were held in towns across Northern Ireland and thousands were said to have joined. The following year,
10773-595: The champion of the Ulster Farmers and Labourers Union. With the Cork City MP, William O'Brien , Russell helped initiate a programme that built some 40,000 one-acre labourer-owned cottages. During the constructivist 1890s, and before a Liberal government revived the prospects for home rule, unionists appeared more at ease with interest in Irish culture. The first Ulster branch of the Gaelic League
10906-480: The consent of a majority of its citizens , and proposed the creation of a new power-sharing government. It also gave the Irish government an advisory role on some matters in Northern Ireland. Both the DUP and UUP mounted a major protest campaign against the Agreement, dubbed " Ulster Says No ". Both unionist parties resigned their seats in the British House of Commons, suspended district council meetings, and led
11039-534: The constituency of Belfast East for the Democratic Unionist Party , defeating the incumbent Naomi Long of the Alliance Party , to become a Member of Parliament in the 2015 UK General Election. In March 2019, Robinson was one of 21 MPs who voted against LGBT-inclusive sex and relationship education in English schools. In June 2023, he was elected by Democratic Unionist Party MLAs and MPs to become
11172-579: The continued existence of the BBC (as the DUP, UKIP and Conservatives had made a number of statements criticising the institution) and support for same-sex marriage . However, in an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live deputy leader of the DUP Nigel Dodds told BBC Newsline that the DUP was "against discrimination based on religion ... or sexual orientation". On 10 September 2015, Peter Robinson stepped aside as First Minister and other DUP ministers, with
11305-568: The creation of a Council of Ireland, which would facilitate co-operation between the governments of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The DUP won eight seats in the 1973 election to the Assembly . Along with other anti-Agreement unionists, the DUP formed the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) to oppose the Agreement. In the February 1974 UK election , the UUUC won 11 out of 12 Northern Ireland seats, while
11438-560: The decision. The party suspended DUP councillor Jenny Palmer , who sat on the executive board, after she confessed that DUP special adviser Stephen Brimstone pressured her into changing her vote at the meeting. In the 2015 general election , when the result was expected to be a hung parliament , the issue of DUP and the UK Independence Party forming a coalition government with the UK Conservative Party
11571-470: The exception of Arlene Foster , resigned their portfolios. Arlene Foster became leader of the DUP on 17 December 2015, and served as First Minister of Northern Ireland from January 2016 to January 2017. Two days before the UK Brexit referendum , held on 23 June 2016, the DUP paid £282,000 for a four-page glossy wrap-around to the free newspaper Metro , which is distributed in major towns and cities in
11704-479: The island of Ireland. At the local government election of 2005 , the DUP emerged as the largest party at local government level with 182 councillors across Northern Ireland's 26 district councils. The DUP had a majority of the members on Castlereagh Borough Council , which had long been a DUP stronghold and was home to party leader Peter Robinson , also in Ballymena Borough Council , home to
11837-507: The largest women's political organisation in Ireland. Elizabeth McCracken noted the failure of unionist women to formulate "any demand on their own behalf or that of their own sex". Yet in September 1913 McCracken was celebrating a "marriage of unionism and women's suffrage". Following reports that the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WPSU) would begin organising in Ulster, the secretary of Ulster Unionist Council had informed
11970-525: The leadership contest. Jeffrey Donaldson was ratified as DUP leader on 30 June 2021, and said his top priority was to get rid of the Northern Ireland Protocol , the post- Brexit trade arrangements. Hours after he became leader, MLA Alex Easton left the DUP, saying the party no longer had any "respect, discipline or decency". This meant the DUP were no longer the biggest party in the Assembly. Unionism in Ireland Unionism in Ireland
12103-613: The leadership of the tenant-right movement men, like the Rev. James Armour of Ballymoney , who were at best agnostic on the union, while in the west of the province (in counties Armagh , Cavan , Fermanagh and Tyrone ) even Orangemen had started joining the Land League. The final and decisive shift in favour of constitutional concessions came in the wake of the Third Reform Act of 1884 . The near-universal admission to
12236-674: The leadership of unionism. Together with R. Lindsay Crawford and their Independent Orange Order , Sloan supported dock and linen-mill workers, led by the syndicalist James Larkin , in the great Belfast Lockout of 1907 . In July 1912, loyalists forced some 3,000 workers out of the shipyards and engineering plants in Belfast. Unlike previous incidents, the expellees included not only Catholics but also some 600 Protestants, targeted mainly because they were seen to support labour organising across sectarian lines. The unionist press depicted any connection with either British Labour (who had held their first party conference in Belfast in 1907) or with
12369-491: The link between Ireland and Great Britain were weakened or severed". That same link was critical for all those employed in the great export industries of the North—textiles, engineering, shipbuilding. For these the Irish hinterland was less important than the industrial triangle that linked Belfast and region with Clydeside and the north of England. Yet the most popular summary of case against Irish self-government remained
12502-600: The main parties signed the New Decade, New Approach agreement and the Executive was re-formed with Foster as First Minister and Michelle O'Neill of Sinn Féin as deputy First Minister. In April 2021, it was reported that the majority of DUP MLAs and MPs had signed a letter of no confidence in Foster. She therefore announced that she would step down as DUP leader in May and as First Minister in June. After Foster's announcement,
12635-401: The manufacturers and merchants of Belfast and neighbouring industrial districts could generally count on voting with the majority of their own workforce. But the loyalty of the Protestant worker was not unconditional. In the mind of many working-class unionists there was no contradiction between the defence of Protestant principle and political radicalism, "indeed, these were often seen as one and
12768-633: The measure. In 1891 Ulster's Liberal Unionists , part of a larger Liberal break with Gladstone, entered Saunderson's Irish Unionist Alliance , and at Westminster took the Conservative whip . In 1892, despite bitter division over the personally compromised leadership of Parnell, the Nationalists were able to help Gladstone to a third ministry. The result was a second Home Rule bill . It was greeted by an Ulster opposition more highly developed and better organised. A great Ulster Unionist Convention
12901-663: The message broadcast in a "great revival" of the Orange Order — "Home Rule means Rome Rule ". In the north, the competition represented by the growing numbers of Catholics arriving at mill and factory gates had already given the once largely rural (and Anglican ) Orange Order a new lease among Protestant workers. The pattern, in itself, was not unique to Belfast and its satellites. Glasgow , Manchester , Liverpool and other British centres experiencing large-scale Irish immigration developed similar Orange and nativist ward and workplace politics with which unionists—organised in
13034-415: The multi-party power-sharing Executive. While serving as ministers, they refused to sit at meetings of the executive committee in protest at Sinn Féin's participation. The Executive ultimately collapsed over an alleged IRA espionage ring at Stormont (see Stormontgate ). The Good Friday Agreement relied on the support of a majority of unionists and a majority of nationalists in order for it to operate. During
13167-542: The next thirty years. The conflict began amid a campaign to end discrimination against the Catholic / Irish nationalist minority by the Protestant/unionist government and police force. This protest campaign was opposed, often violently, by unionists who viewed it as an Irish republican front. Paisley had led the unionist opposition to the civil rights movement. The DUP were more hardline or loyalist than
13300-629: The nineteenth century. Typically Presbyterian agrarian-reform Liberals coalesced with traditionally Anglican Orange Order Conservatives against the Irish Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893. Joined by loyalist labour, on the eve of World War I this broad opposition to Irish self-government concentrated in Belfast and its hinterlands as Ulster unionism and prepared an armed resistance—the Ulster Volunteers . Within
13433-502: The north, George Ensor , observed that this broke the link between Catholic inclusion and democratic reform. In Ulster, resistance to O'Connell's appeal was stiffened by a religious revival. With its emphasis upon "personal witness", the New Reformation appeared to transcend the ecclesiastical differences between the different Protestant denominations. while launching them into "a far more conscious sense of separateness from
13566-520: The office of the Lord Lieutenant , by English ministers. Seeing little prospect of further reform and in the hope that they might be assisted by republican France , these United Irishmen sought a revolutionary union of "Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter" (i.e. of Catholics and Protestants of all persuasions). Their resolve was broken with the defeat of their uprising in 1798 , and by reports of rebel outrages against Protestant Loyalists in
13699-549: The old-fashioned Tories of the Counties ... modern Conservatives ... Orangemen ... All these various elements—Whig, Liberal, Radical, Presbyterian, Episcopalian , Unitarian and Methodist ... united as one man." While references to Catholics were conciliatory the Convention resolved: to retain unchanged our present position as an integral portion of the United Kingdom, and protest in the most unequivocal manner against
13832-627: The parties was formalised after the 2017 United Kingdom general election with the signing of the Conservative–DUP agreement . In October 2017, the DUP held a similar reception at the Conservative Party conference, which was attended by leading Conservative figures including First Secretary of State Damian Green , Brexit Secretary David Davis , then- Chief Whip Gavin Williamson , and party chairman Patrick McLoughlin . This
13965-525: The party when its deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, had the highest expenses claims of any Northern Ireland MP, ranking 13th highest out of all UK MPs. Details of all MPs' expenses claims since 2004 were published in July 2009 under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 . In January 2010, Peter Robinson was at the centre of a high-profile scandal relating to his 60-year-old MP/MLA wife Iris Robinson 's infidelity with
14098-467: The party's Deputy Leader, succeeding Paula Bradley . His appointment to the His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council was announced on 28 March 2024 as part of the 2024 Special Honours . The next day, Robinson was appointed interim leader of the DUP after Sir Jeffrey Donaldson resigned following the disclosure that he had been charged by PSNI detectives with historic sex offences. Robinson
14231-558: The party's deputy leader, Gavin Robinson , being appointed as interim leader and later confirmed as party leader in May 2024. The Democratic Unionist Party evolved from the Protestant Unionist Party , which itself grew out of the Ulster Protestant Action movement. The DUP was founded on 30 September 1971 by Ian Paisley , leader of the Protestant Unionist Party, and Desmond Boal , formerly of
14364-435: The party's founder Ian Paisley, and finally Ards Borough Council . As well as outright control on these councils, the DUP was also the largest party in eight other councils – Antrim Borough Council , Ballymoney Borough Council , Banbridge District Council , Belfast City Council , Carrickfergus Borough Council , Coleraine Borough Council , Craigavon Borough Council and Newtownabbey Borough Council . On 11 April 2006, it
14497-547: The passage of any measure that would rob us of our inheritance in the Imperial Parliament, under the protection of which our capital has been invested and our home and rights safeguarded; that we record our determination to have nothing to do with a Parliament certain to be controlled by men responsible for the crime and outrage of the Land League . . . many of whom have shown themselves the ready instrument of clerical domination. After mammoth parliamentary sessions
14630-410: The pro-Agreement unionists failed to win any. On 15 May 1974, anti-Agreement unionists called a general strike aimed at bringing down the Agreement . The strike coordinating committee included DUP leader Paisley, the other UUUC leaders, and the leaders of the loyalist paramilitary groups . The strike lasted fourteen days and brought Northern Ireland to a standstill. Loyalist paramilitaries helped enforce
14763-439: The rule of law that he would nominate himself on 28 March 2007 after the Assembly elections on 7 March 2007. The Assembly meeting was brought to an abrupt end when the building had to be evacuated because of a security breach. Paisley later released a statement through the press office stating that he did in fact imply that if Sinn Féin supported policing and the rule of law, he would go into a power-sharing government with them. This
14896-497: The same because it was the wealthy who were most prone to conciliation and treachery". Exercising the new workingman's vote , in 1868 loyalists in Belfast had chosen their own "Conservative", rejecting a millowner and returning an evangelical Orangeman, William Johnston , to Westminster. Johnston proceeded to propose and vote for labour protection , tenant right , the secret ballot and woman's suffrage In 1902, Johnston's successor as MP for South Belfast , Thomas Sloan , again
15029-548: The second-largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly , and won five seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom at the 2024 election . The party has been mostly described as right-wing and socially conservative , being anti-abortion and opposing same-sex marriage . The DUP sees itself as defending Britishness and Ulster Protestant culture against Irish nationalism and republicanism . It
15162-544: The services of Carson, from 1892 MP for Trinity College Dublin and supported him from 1910 as leader of the Irish Unionist parliamentary party. But marshalled by Captain James Craig , a millionaire director of Belfast's Dunville Whiskey , it was northern employers who undertook the real political and organisational work. Unlike the southern landowners who were politically opposed by their Catholic tenants,
15295-413: The southern Protestant Charles Stewart Parnell . In 1881, in a further Land Act , Gladstone conceded the three F's —fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure. Recognising that "the land grievance had been a bond of discontent between Ulster and the rest of Ireland and in that sense a danger to the union", Irish Conservatives did not oppose the measure. Protestants in the eastern counties had admitted to
15428-416: The strike by blocking roads and intimidating workers. On the third day of the strike, loyalists detonated four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan , killing 33 civilians. The strike led to the downfall of the Agreement on 28 May. Following the downfall of the Agreement, in 1975 the British government set up a Constitutional Convention , an elected body of unionists and nationalists which would seek agreement on
15561-411: The suffrage of male heads of household tripled the electorate in Ireland. The 1885 election returned an IPP, now under the leadership of Parnell, of 85 Members (including 17 from Ulster where Conservatives and Liberals split the unionist vote). Gladstone, whose Liberals lost all 15 of their Irish seats, was able to form his second ministry only with their Commons support. In June 1886, Gladstone tabled
15694-572: The support of the splinter Liberal Unionist Party , Salisbury returned to office in 1895. The Land Act of 1896 introduced for the first time the principle of compulsory sale to tenants, through its application was limited to bankrupt estates. "You would suppose", said Sir Edward Carson , Dublin barrister and the leading spokesman for Irish Conservatives, "that the Government were revolutionists verging on Socialism". Having been first obliged to surrender their hold on local government (transferred at
15827-486: The traditions of Irish Boards by announcing that its aim was to "be in touch with public opinion of the classes whom its work concerns, and to rely largely for its success upon their active assistance and cooperation". It supported and encouraged dairy cooperatives, the Creameries, that were to be an important institution in the emergence of a new class of independent smallholders. Greater reform followed when, with
15960-473: Was announced that three DUP members were to be elevated to the House of Lords : Maurice Morrow , Wallace Browne , the former Lord Mayor of Belfast , and Eileen Paisley , a vice-president of the DUP and wife of DUP Leader Ian Paisley. None, however, sit as DUP peers. On 27 October 2006, the DUP issued a four-page letter in the Belfast Telegraph newspaper asking "Are the terms of Saint Andrew's
16093-466: Was considered by Nigel Farage (leader of UKIP). The then Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats , Nick Clegg , warned against this "Blukip" coalition, with a spoof website highlighting imagined policies from this coalition – such as reinstating the death penalty , scrapping all benefits for under 25s and charging for hospital visits. Additionally, issues were raised about
16226-516: Was constituted, they believed that an Irish parliament would (egged on by the "American Irish") enter into conflicts with the "imperial parliament" in London that could only be resolved through "complete separation". The upper and middle classes found in Britain and the Empire "a wide range of profitable careers--in the army, in the public services, in commerce--from which they might be shut out if
16359-510: Was defeated in the Lords, but as result of the crisis engendered by the opposition of the peers to the 1910 People's Budget the Lords now only had the power of delay. Home Rule would become law in 1914. There had long been discussion of giving "an option to Ulster". As early as 1843, The Northern Whig reasoned that if differences in ethnicity ("race") and interests argue for Ireland's separation from Great Britain, they could as easily argue for
16492-493: Was following a statement issued by 12 DUP MLAs stating that what Ian Paisley had said in the chamber could not be interpreted as a nomination. In February 2007, the DUP suggested that it would begin to impose fines up to £ 20,000 on members disobeying the party whip on crucial votes. On 24 March 2007 the DUP party executive overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution put to them by the party officers that did not agree to an establishment of devolution and an executive in Northern Ireland by
16625-478: Was formed in 1895 in east Belfast under the patronage of the Rev. John Baptiste Crozier and Dr. John St Clair Boyd , both avowed unionists, and of the Orange Order Grand Master, the Rev. Richard Rutledge Kane . But for many Irish unionists the chief-secretaryship of George Wyndham was "a last straw". In February 1905, they learned that his undersecretary, Sir Anthony MacDonnell ,
16758-651: Was held in Belfast organised by the Liberal Unionist Thomas Sinclair , whom the press noted had been a critic of Orangeism. Speakers and observers dwelt on the diversity of creed, class and party represented among the 12,300 delegates attending. As reported by the Northern Whig there were "the old tenant-righters of the 'sixties' ... the sturdy reformers of Antrim ... the Unitarians of Down, always progressive in their politics ...
16891-679: Was himself forced to step down after three weeks. In June 2021, he was succeeded by Jeffrey Donaldson . In protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol , Givan resigned as First Minister in February 2022, collapsing the Northern Ireland Executive . On 30 January 2024, Donaldson announced that the DUP had agreed a deal with the UK government that resulted in power-sharing being restored. Donaldson resigned as leader on 29 March 2024 after being charged with historical sex offences, with
17024-617: Was not the choice of employers. The campaign of the Belfast Protestant Association candidate was marked by what his opponents considered a classic piece of bigotry. Sloan protested the exemption of Catholic convents from inspection by the Hygiene Commission (the Catholic Church should not be "a state within a state"). But it was as a trade unionist that he criticised the "fur-coat brigade" in
17157-503: Was ratified as the new leader, with Nigel Dodds as his deputy. On 11 June 2008, the party supported the government's proposal to detain terrorist suspects for up to 42 days as part of the Counter-Terrorism Bill , leading The Independent newspaper to dub all of the party's nine MPs as part of "Brown's dirty dozen". The Times reported that the party had been given "sweeteners for Northern Ireland" and "a peerage for
17290-671: Was reciprocated in November, when Damian Green and Conservative Chief Whip Julian Smith attended the DUP's conference, with Smith giving a keynote address. The third such annual DUP reception at the Conservative conference took place in October 2018, with Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond and former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson addressing the DUP conference a month later. Prominent Conservative MPs such as Environment Secretary Michael Gove , Leader of
17423-518: Was the Parliament in Dublin . Confined on a narrow franchise to landed members of the established Anglican communion (the Anglo-Irish " Protestant Ascendancy "), the parliament denied equal protection and public office to Dissenters (non-Anglican Protestants) and to the Kingdom's dispossessed Roman Catholic majority. The high point of this parliamentary patriotism was the formation during
17556-608: Was to be the high point of mobilisation in Ulster against Home Rule, the Covenant Campaign of September 1912, the unionist leadership decided that men alone could not speak for the determination of the unionist people to defend "their equal citizenship in the United Kingdom". Women were asked to sign, not the Covenant whose commitment to "all means which may be found necessary" implied a readiness to bear arms, but their own Associate Declaration. A total of 234,046 women signed
17689-586: Was transferred to Westminster . In the Presbyterian north east the Irish parliament was unlamented. Having refused calls for reform—to broaden representation and curb corruption—few saw cause to regret its passing. It took the Union thirty years to deliver on the promise of Catholic emancipation (1829)—to admit Catholics to Parliament—and permit an erosion of the Protestant monopoly on position and influence. An opportunity to integrate Catholics through their re-emerging propertied and professional classes as
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