Belfast Cromac (UK Parliament constituency)

Belfast Cromac
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
1918–1922
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Belfast South
Created from	Belfast South

Cromac, a division of Belfast, was a UK parliamentary constituency in Ireland. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1922, using the first past the post electoral system. .

Boundaries and Boundary Changes

This constituency comprised the western half of South Belfast, and contained the then Cromac and Windsor wards of Belfast Corporation.^[1]

Prior to the 1918 general election and after the dissolution of Parliament in 1922 the area was part of the Belfast South constituency.

Politics

The constituency was a predominantly Unionist area, with some Labour support. In the 1918 election Sinn Féin were a poor third.

The First Dáil

Sinn Féin contested the general election of 1918 on the platform that instead of taking up any seats they won in the United Kingdom Parliament, 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 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. 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 and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland as a poll for the Irish Republic's Second Dáil. Cromac was, in republican theory, incorporated in a four-member Dáil constituency of Belfast South.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party
	1918	William Arthur Lindsay (1866-1936)	Irish Unionist
	May 1921		Ulster Unionist
1922			constituency abolished

Election

General Election 14 December 1918: Belfast Cromac
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Unionist	William Arthur Lindsay	11,459	76.58	N/A
	Belfast Labour	James Freeland	2,508	16.76	N/A
	Sinn Féin	Archibald Savage	997	6.66	N/A
Majority			8,951	59.82	N/A
Turnout			21,673	69.04	N/A
	Irish Unionist gain from new seat		Swing	N/A

References

↑ Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918, Second Schedule, Part I

Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "C" (part 6)
Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801–1922, edited by B.M. Walker (Royal Irish Academy 1978)
Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Volume III 1919–1945, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (The Harvester Press 1979)
(Information about boundaries of the constituency derived from the map of Northern Ireland Parliament constituencies (in force from 1921) and the wards included in the Belfast UK Parliament seats (in force 1922) for which see Northern Ireland Parliamentary Election Results 1921–1972, by Sydney Elliott (Political Reference Publications 1973) and Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies 1885–1972, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Political Reference Publications 1972) respective