Belfast Cromac (UK Parliament constituency)

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.

Belfast Cromac
Former borough constituency for the House of Commons
1918–1922
Seats	1
Created from	Belfast South
Replaced by	Belfast South

Boundaries and boundary changes

The constituency was created by the Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918 and 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.^{[citation needed]}

Politics

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

First Dáil

After the 1918 election, Sinn Féin invited all those elected for constituencies in Ireland to sit as TDs in Dáil Éireann rather than in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.^[2] All those elected for Irish constituencies were included in the roll of the Dáil but only those elected for Sinn Féin sat in the First Dáil.^[3] In May 1921, the Dáil passed a resolution declaring that elections to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland would be used as the election for the Second Dáil and that the First Dáil would be dissolved on the assembly of the new body.^[4] The area of Belfast Cromac was then represented in the Dáil by the four-seat constituency of Belfast South, which also returned no representatives for Sinn Féin.

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
	Belfast Labour	James Freeland	2,508	16.76
	Sinn Féin	Archibald Savage	997	6.66
Majority			8,951	59.82
Turnout			21,673	69.04
	Irish Unionist win (new seat)

References

1. Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918, Second Schedule, Part I
2. "The inaugural public meeting of Dáil Éireann". Dáil 100. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
3. "3. AN ROLLA". Houses of the Oireachtas. 21 January 1919. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
4. "Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 10 May 1921 - PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT. - ELECTIONS". Houses of the Oireachtas. Retrieved 22 February 2019.

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "C" (part 6)
• Walker, Brian M., ed. (1978). Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801–1922. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. p. 384. ISBN 0901714127.
• Stenton, M.; Lees, S., eds. (1979). 'Who's Who of British members of parliament: Volume III 1919–1945. The Harvester Press.
• (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

See also

• List of UK Parliament Constituencies in Ireland and Northern Ireland
• List of MPs elected in the 1918 United Kingdom general election
• Historic Dáil constituencies
• Members of the 1st Dáil