Sir Oliver Napier (11 July 1935 – 2 July 2011) was the first leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. In 1974 he served as the first and only Legal Minister and head of the Office of Legal Reform in the Northern Ireland power-sharing executive set up by the

Sunningdale Agreement The Sunningdale Agreement was an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland. The agreement was signed by the British and Irish government in Sunningdale, Berkshire, on 9 December 1 ...

Early life

Napier was educated at St. Malachy's College,

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 ...

and the Queen's University of Belfast before starting work as a solicitor.

Political career

Napier joined the Ulster Liberal Party, rising to become vice president by 1969. That year, he led a group of four party members who joined the New Ulster Movement, accepting the post of joint chairman of its political committee. The Liberal Party promptly expelled him, but, working with Bob Cooper, he used his position to establish a new political party, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, which sought to become a political force that could command support from across the divided communities of the province, but remaining pro-union. This aimed to offer an alternative to what Napier described as the sectarianism of the

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 ...

. Despite his faith he was a supporter of the Union. He served as the party's joint leader from 1970 until 1972, then as its sole leader from 1973 to 1984. Under his leadership Alliance participated in successive assemblies that sought to solve the debate on the province's position, including the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973 in which Napier was a minister in the power-sharing Executive. In 1979 he came closer to winning a seat in the Westminster Parliament than any other Alliance candidate up to that point when he was less than a thousand votes behind Peter Robinson's winning total in Belfast East in a tight three-way marginal. This record was beaten in 2010, when Naomi Long ousted Robinson from the same seat. When Napier stepped down as leader in 1984 he received many plaudits for his work. The following year he was knighted and in 1989 he stood down from

Belfast City Council Belfast City Council () is the Local government in Northern Ireland, local authority with responsibility for part of Belfast, the largest city of Northern Ireland. The council serves an estimated population of (), the largest of any district c ...

, seemingly to retire. However, in 1995 he returned to the political fray when he contested the North Down by-election for the Alliance, standing again in the 1997 general election. In 1996 he was elected to the Northern Ireland Peace Forum for North Down. Prior to his death Oliver Napier was the last prominent member of the Ulster Liberal Party.

Public positions

Napier served on the board of governors of the first integrated school in Northern Ireland, Lagan College.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Napier, Oliver 1935 births 2011 deaths Alumni of Queen's University Belfast Knights Bachelor Leaders of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland Members of Belfast City Council Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly 1973–1974 Members of the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention Northern Ireland MPAs 1982–1986 Members of the Northern Ireland Forum Solicitors from Northern Ireland Ulster Liberal Party politicians People educated at St Malachy's College Executive ministers of the 1974 Northern Ireland Assembly Alliance Party of Northern Ireland councillors Alliance Party parliamentary candidates Lawyers from Belfast Politicians from Belfast