1950–1983: The county of Fermanagh, the Urban District of Dungannon, the Rural Districts of Clogher and Dungannon, and that part of the Rural District of Omagh consisting of the
district electoral divisions of Aghafad, Dervaghroy, Dromore, Drumharvey, Ecclesville, Fallaghearn,
Fintona, Greenan, Killskerry, Lifford, Moorfield, Rahoney, Seskinore, Tattymoyle and Trillick.
1983–1997: The District of Fermanagh, and the District of Dungannon.
1997–present: The District of Fermanagh, and the District of Dungannon wards of Augher, Aughnacloy, Ballygawley, Ballysaggart, Benburb, Caledon, Castlecaulfield, Clogher, Coolhill, Drumglass, Fivemiletown, Killyman, Killymeal, Moy, Moygashel, and Mullaghmore.
Throughout the existence of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, there has been a rough balance between
unionist and
nationalist voters, though in recent years the nationalists have had a slight majority. Many elections have seen a candidate from one community triumph due to multiple candidates from the other community splitting the vote. Perhaps because of this balance between the communities, Fermanagh and South Tyrone has repeatedly had the highest turn-out (and the smallest winning margin) of any constituency in Northern Ireland.
The seat was won by the
Nationalist Party in
1950 and
1951, the closely contested 1951 election seeing a 93.4% turnout – a UK record for any election.
The
ensuing by-election took place amidst the
1981 Irish Hunger Strike. As part of the campaign for the five demands of the prisoners, the
Provisional Irish Republican Army Officer Commanding in the
Maze prison,
Bobby Sands, was nominated as an
Anti-H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner candidate.
Harry West stood for the UUP, but no other candidates contested the by-election. On 9 April 1981, Sands won with 30,492 votes against 29,046 for West. 26 days later Sands died on hunger strike. Speedy legislation barred prisoners serving a sentence of 12 months or longer from standing for Parliament, and so in the new by-election Sands' agent
Owen Carron stood as a "Proxy Political Prisoner". The UUP nominated
Ken Maginnis. The
second by-election in August was also contested by the
Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, the
Workers' Party Republican Clubs, a candidate standing on a label of General Amnesty and another as The Peace Lover. The turn-out was even higher, with most of the additional votes going to the additional parties standing, and Carron was elected.[citation needed] In
the 1982 election for the Northern Ireland Assembly, Carron headed the Sinn Féin slate for the constituency and was elected.
Republicans suffered a reversal in the
1983 general election, when the SDLP contested the seat. Maginnis won and held the seat for the UUP for the next eighteen years until he retired. By this point boundary changes had resulted in a broad 50:50 balance between unionists and nationalists and it was expected that a single unionist candidate would hold the seat in the
2001 general election.
James Cooper was nominated by the UUP. On this occasion, however, both the nationalist and unionist votes were to be split. Initially,
Maurice Morrow of the DUP was nominated to stand, with the DUP fiercely opposing the UUP's support for the
Good Friday Agreement. Morrow then withdrew in favour of Jim Dixon, a survivor of the
Enniskillen bombing who stood as an Independent Unionist opposed to the Agreement.
Tommy Gallagher of the SDLP ran, but his intervention did not do enough damage to Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin's
Michelle Gildernew won by 53 votes over Cooper. Subsequently, the result was challenged amid allegations that a polling station had been kept open by force for longer than the deadline, allowing more people to vote, but the courts—while conceding that this happened—did not uphold the challenge, because it held that the votes cast after the legal closing time would not have affected the outcome.[1]
Ahead of the
2005 general election, there was speculation that a single unionist candidate could retake the seat. The UUP and DUP, however, ran opposing candidates and in the event Gildernew held her seat. She kept the seat at the
2010 general election by four votes over the Unionist candidate,
Rodney Connor.[2] Following the election, Connor lodged an election petition challenging the result, based on a dispute about differences in the number of ballot papers recorded at polling stations and those subsequently recorded at the count centre.[3] The petition was rejected after it was found that only three extra votes remained unaccounted for. The judge ruled that "even if those votes were introduced in breach of the rules and if they had all been counted in favour of the first respondent their exclusion would still have given the first respondent (Ms Gildernew) a majority of one vote and the result would not have been affected."[4]
In the
election of May 2015 Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew lost the seat to the UUP's candidate
Tom Elliott. Although Elliott was running for the UUP, he was also being actively supported by the DUP, the
Traditional Unionist Voice and the
UK Independence Party. The
Conservative Party also refused to run a candidate in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, despite running in 16 out of the other 17 constituencies.[5] Just as in the
February 1974 and
1983 elections, faced with a single Unionist candidate, the SDLP refused to discuss a nationalist pact with Sinn Féin.
Gildernew re-captured her seat in the
snap June 2017 election. In the
2019 election she was re-elected with a majority of just 57 votes (the narrowest result in the UK), despite the DUP withdrawing and the SDLP standing a candidate. This made the 2019 election the second time in under ten years that Fermanagh and South Tyrone has been the seat with the smallest winning majority in the UK.
Caroline Wheeler is a member of the United Kingdom
Labour Party who ran as an independent in the seat as the Labour Party do not run in Northern Ireland.[9][10]
This was the smallest majority at the 2019 general election.[11]
Rodney Connor had the support of the
Democratic Unionist Party and
Ulster Conservatives and Unionists - New Force[19] Following the close result Connor lodged a petition against Gildernew alleging irregularities in the counting of the votes had affected the result. However the Court found that there were only three ballot papers which could not be accounted for, and even if they were all votes for Connor, Gildernew would have had a plurality of one. The election was therefore upheld.[20]
Boundary changes took effect from the
1997 general election. The projections of what the 1992 result would have been if fought on 1997 boundaries are shown below[24]
Notional 1992 UK General Election Result : Fermanagh and South Tyrone
FWS Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1918 – 1949
FWS Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1950 – 1970
External links
2017 Election House Of Commons Library 2017 Election report
"Fermanagh & South Tyrone". Ask Aristotle (Election results from 1992). Guardian Unlimited. Guardian Media Group. Archived from
the original on 10 August 2004. Retrieved 20 May 2022.