Sinn Fein Vice President Michelle O’Neill after the coronation of Charles III. at Westminster Abbey on May 6, 2023. PHIL NOBLE / AFP
The power of Irish nationalists (mainly Catholics) over Northern Ireland is confirmed. For the first time in the history of this UK nation, Sinn Féin, the main party for Ireland’s reunification, came out on top in local elections on Thursday 18 May – the final result is yet to be announced. was released this Saturday. In 2022, the former political arm of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) had won regional general elections for the first time since Ireland was partitioned (1921). The shock is severe for the Unionist community of Northern Ireland (Protestant, who favors remaining in the UK), which has hitherto held a dominant position.
There were around 462 councilor posts up for grabs in Northern Ireland’s eleven local constituencies. Sinn Fein managed to elect 144 candidates (thirty-nine more than in the 2019 local elections), particularly in places like Lisburn or Ballymena in the East, previously thought to be union strongholds. In Belfast, the Unionists hold just 17 of the 60 seats on the Northern Irish capital’s city council.
Also present in the “South”, in the Republic of Ireland (in opposition but growing in popularity), the nationalist party benefited from a strong mobilization of its supporters and from a fundamental demographic trend: according to the 2021 census, Catholics now outnumber the Protestants the nation.
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Blocking Institutions
Brexit has also severely weakened the Protestant community. The DUP (Democratic Unionist Party), the first party of this Northern Irish tendency, which supported the referendum on leaving the European Union in 1996, was able to maintain its level of 2019 (with 122 local councils) but continues to lose importance Unionists preferring to turn to Alliance (a constitutionally neutral party) angered by DUP’s negative and backward-looking attitude.
For more than a year, the Unionist movement has refused to attend the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont Palace, preventing the formation of government and undermining the Good Friday Peace Treaty that ended in 1998 after thirty years of civil war between Catholics and Protestants by creating an equal distribution of power between the two communities. The DUP initially opposed the Northern Ireland Protocol on the grounds that it threatened the Unionists’ British identity. This part of the Brexit deal guaranteed the nation’s dual status – it is British but remains partly in the European single market to avoid forming a customs border on the island of Ireland.
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