Mid Down was a UK

parliamentary constituency An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

and after 1921 Northern Ireland. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the

British House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 memb ...

from 1918 to 1922, using the

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 ...

electoral system .

Boundaries and Boundary Changes

1918-1922: The Urban District of Holywood, the Rural Districts of Castlereagh and Hillsborough, and the District Electoral Divisions of Ballygowan, Ballymaglaff, Kilmood, Moneyreagh and Tullynakill in the Rural District of Newtownards. This

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 ...

comprised the central northern part of

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 ...

, to the south-east of the city of Belfast. Prior to the

1918 The ceasefire that effectively ended the World War I, First World War took place on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of this year. Also in this year, the Spanish flu pandemic killed 50–100 million people wor ...

General Election parts of the area were included in East Down, West Down and North Down constituencies. After the dissolution of Parliament in 1922 Mid Down became part of the two-member Down constituency.

Politics

The constituency was a strongly unionist area, as demonstrated by the small

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffit ...

vote in 1918. The MP elected in 1918, Sir James Craig, became the

Ulster Unionist The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a 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 led unionist oppositi ...

leader and the first

Prime Minister of Northern Ireland The prime minister of Northern Ireland was the head of the Government of Northern Ireland (1921–1972), Government of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. No such office was provided for in the Government of Ireland Act 1920; however, the L ...

in 1921. Having accepted his new office from the Crown on 7 June 1921, Craig's

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

seat was automatically vacated. He did not seek re-election and a new Unionist MP was elected unopposed.

Dáil Éireann

contested the general election of 1918 on the platform that instead of taking up any seats they won in the

United Kingdom Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of ...

, they would establish a revolutionary assembly in Dublin. In republican theory every MP elected in Ireland was a potential Deputy to this assembly. In practice only the Sinn Féin members accepted the offer. The revolutionary

First Dáil First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

assembled on 21 January 1919 and last met on 10 May 1921. The First Dáil, according to a resolution passed on 10 May 1921, was formally dissolved on the assembling of the

Second Dáil The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of Un ...

. This took place on 16 August 1921. In 1921 Sinn Féin decided to use the UK authorised elections for the

Northern Ireland House of Commons The House of Commons of Northern Ireland was the lower house of the Parliament of Northern Ireland created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The upper house in the bicameral parliament was called the Senate. It was abolished with the p ...

and the

House of Commons of Southern Ireland The Parliament of Southern Ireland was a Home Rule legislature established by the British Government during the Irish War of Independence under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It was designed to legislate for Southern Ireland,Order in Coun ...

as a poll for the

Irish Republic The Irish Republic ( or ) was a Revolutionary republic, revolutionary state that Irish Declaration of Independence, declared its independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in January 1919. The Republic claimed jurisdict ...

. Mid Down, in republican theory, was incorporated in an eight-member Dáil constituency of Down.

Members of Parliament 1918–1922

Elections

*''Appointment of Craig as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland''

References

* *

External links

* https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/ * https://web.archive.org/web/20060423011521/http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/en.toc.dail.html