Mid Down was a constituency of the

Parliament of Northern Ireland The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore ord ...

Boundaries

Mid Down was a

county constituency In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one member to the House of Commons. Within the United Kingdom there are five bodies with members elected by electoral districts called " constituen ...

comprising part of northern

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

, immediately south east of

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

. It was created when the

House of Commons (Method of Voting and Redistribution of Seats) Act (Northern Ireland) 1929 The House of Commons (Method of Voting and Redistribution of Seats) Act (Northern Ireland) 1929 (19 Geo. 5. c. 5 (N.I.)) was an act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland at Stormont which changed the usual voting system used for the House of Co ...

introduced

first-past-the-post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

elections throughout

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. Mid Down was created by the division of Down into eight new constituencies. The constituency survived unchanged until 1969, when it was considerably reduced in size, with areas of the seat being transferred to

Lagan Valley The Lagan Valley (, Ulster Scots: ''Glen Lagan'') is an area of Northern Ireland between Belfast and Lisburn. The River Lagan rises on Slieve Croob in County Down and flows generally northward discharging into Belfast Lough. For a section, the ...

and North Down. It returned one Member of Parliament until the Parliament of Northern Ireland was temporarily suspended in 1972, and then formally abolished in 1973. The seat comprised parts of the

rural districts A rural district was a type of local government area – now superseded – established at the end of the 19th century in England, Wales, and Ireland for the administration of predominantly rural areas at a level lower than that of the adm ...

of Castlereagh, Hillsborough and

Newtownards Newtownards (; ) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies at the most northern tip of Strangford Lough, 10 miles (16 km) east of Belfast, on the Ards Peninsula. It is in the Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish of Newtow ...

.Northern Ireland Parliamentary Election results: Constituency Boundaries
/ref>

Politics

The seat had a substantial unionist majority and was always won by

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a Unionism in Ireland, unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded as the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it l ...

candidates. It was only contested on one occasion, by a

Northern Ireland Labour Party The Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) was a political party in Northern Ireland which operated from 1924 until 1987. Origins The roots of the NILP can be traced back to the formation of the Belfast Labour Party in 1892. Previously, in 1885 ...

candidate who received only 23% of the votes cast.Northern Ireland Parliamentary Election Results: Counties: Down
/ref>

Members of Parliament

Election results

At the

1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...

1933 Events January * January 11 – Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independen ...

1938 Events January * January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). * January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...

1945 1945 marked the end of World War II, the fall of Nazi Germany, and the Empire of Japan. It is also the year concentration camps were liberated and the only year in which atomic weapons have been used in combat. Events World War II will be ...

and

1949 Northern Ireland general election The 1949 Northern Ireland general election was held on 19 February 1949. The election became known as the Chapel-gate election because collections were held at churches in the Republic of Ireland to support the Nationalist Party campaign. T ...

s, J. M. Andrews was elected unopposed. At the

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito ...

1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the thir ...

and

1962 Northern Ireland general election The 1962 Northern Ireland general election was held on 31 May 1962. While the Ulster Unionist Party lost three seats, they retained a large majority as in all previous elections to the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Results ''Al ...

Jack Andrews Sir John Lawson Ormrod Andrews (15 July 1903 – 12 January 1986) was a member of both the Northern Ireland House of Commons and the Senate of Northern Ireland. Son of Prime Minister J. M. Andrews, he was educated at Moure Grange Preparato ...

was elected unopposed. At the

1965 Events January–February * January 14 – The First Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lynd ...

and

1969 Northern Ireland general election The 1969 Northern Ireland general election was held on Monday 24 February 1969. It was the last election to the Parliament of Northern Ireland before its abolition by the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. This was the first (and only) el ...

Basil Kelly Sir John William Basil Kelly, PC, PC (NI), QC (10 May 1920 – 5 December 2008), usually known as Sir Basil Kelly, was a Northern Irish barrister, judge and politician. Life Kelly was born into an Ulster Protestant family in Clones, County ...

was elected unopposed.

References

{{County Down constituencies Historic constituencies in County Down Northern Ireland Parliament constituencies established in 1929 Constituencies of the Northern Ireland Parliament Northern Ireland Parliament constituencies disestablished in 1973