Belfast Ormeau (UK Parliament constituency)

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

Ormeau, 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 1918–1922, using the first past the post electoral system.

Boundaries and Boundary Changes

This constituency comprised the eastern half of South Belfast, and contained the then Ormeau ward 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 strongly unionist area. Sinn Féin demonstrated this by receiving only 338 votes, in the 1918 election.

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. This constituency was, in republican theory, incorporated in a four-member Dáil constituency of Belfast South.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party
	1918	Thomas Moles	Irish Unionist
	May 1921		Ulster Unionist
1922			constituency abolished

Election

General Election 14 December 1918: Belfast Ormeau
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Unionist	Thomas Moles	7,460	59.06	N/A
	Independent Unionist	William John Stewart	4,833	38.26	N/A
	Sinn Féin	James Joseph Dobbyn	338	2.68	N/A
Majority			2,627	20.80	N/A
Turnout			16,343	77.29	N/A
	Irish Unionist gain from new seat		Swing	N/A

References

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

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