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Concept
Parliament of Northern Ireland
Summary
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 order during The Troubles, resulting in the introduction of Direct Rule. It was abolished under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.
The Parliament of Northern Ireland was bicameral, consisting of a House of Commons with 52 seats, and an indirectly elected Senate with 26 seats. The Sovereign was represented by the Governor (initially by the Lord Lieutenant), who granted royal assent to Acts of Parliament in Northern Ireland, but executive power rested with the Prime Minister, the leader of the largest party in the House of Commons.
House of Commons of Northern Ireland
The House of Commons had 52 members, of which 48 were for territorial seats, and four were for graduates of Queen's University, Belfast (until 1969, when the four university seats were replaced by an additional four territorial seats). The Government of Ireland Act prescribed that elections to the House of Commons should be by single transferable vote (STV), though the Parliament was given the power to alter the electoral system from three years after its first meeting. The STV system was the subject of criticism from grassroots Unionists, but because the three-year period ended during the Labour government of 1924, the Stormont government decided not to provoke the known egalitarian sympathies of many Labour backbenchers and held the second election on the same basis. The loss of eight Unionist seats in that election caused great acrimony, and in 1929, the system was changed to first-past-the-post for all territorial constituencies, though STV was retained for the university seats.
In the 1925 election, however, Republicans also lost four seats and a substantial proportion of votes. Nationalists gained the same number of seats that Republicans had lost, but had only gained a small percentage of votes.
Official source
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