If the North went South...

[piperdave]

Like most others on here, I'm fascinated by maps of various types. A map showing the historical counties of Ireland sparked off a thought. In the event that Northern Ireland ever left the UK and joined the Republic, what would the new Dail constituencies be? I've tried to align the wards with the six historic counties as best I can, except that I've made an enlarged Belfast (roughly on the basis that it will be expanded under local government reform) its own county. My knowledge of NI is a bit patchy but I've no doubt I'll be helpfully corrected!

I've assumed that the Constituency Commission would not create a constituency which crosses the Border, although they easily could and it may be desireable in the Fermanagh/Leitrim area in particular.

I don't have a handy map to plug this all into but I'm sure someone else has. I also haven't looked at the party effects as I don't have those figures, but again, I'm sure someone does and it would be interesting to see.

The 2012 Constituency Commission report sets out the parameters which apply in the Republic so I've applied them to NI as well. Each TD should represent around 28,000 people (population not electors) and constituencies will return 3, 4 or 5 electors. The usually resident population by ward from the 2011 census is the base data. Having just over 1,8million residents, Northern Ireland would be entitled to 63 seats in Dail Eireann with each TD representing 28,744 people on average.

Antrim
Antrim, taking in the whole of the districts of Antrim, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Carrickfergus, Larne, Moyle, Newtonabbey. Plus Aghaghallon from Craigavon and most of Lisburn (wards where the population is north of the Lagan or part of the Lisburn urban area). The county has a population then of 390,734 and a theoretical entitlement of 13.6 seats, rounded to 13.

Antrim East (Carrickfergus, Larne except Carnlough and Glenarm, and Newtonabbey) is a 5 member constituency with a population of 152,541.

Antrim North (Ballymena, Ballymoney, Moyle plus Carnlough and Glenarm from Larne) is a 4 member constituency with a population of 116,210.

Antrim South (Antrim, those parts of Lisburn and Aghagallon) is a 4 member constituency with a population of 121,983.

Armagh
I've taken Armagh as everything west of the Bann, those parts of Newry to the east of it and then the urban areas of Craigavon, Portadown and Lurgan. The county has a population of 196,504 and a theoretical entitlement of 6.8 rounded up to 7 seats.

Armagh North (those parts of Craigavon in the county) is a 3 member constituency with a population of 84,103.

Armagh South (Armagh plus Newry) is a 4 member constituency with a population of 112,401.

Derry
Derry is the whole of Coleraine, Derry, Limavady, Magherafelt and the Moneymore and The Loop wards of Cookstown. The county has a population of 251,110 and a theoretical entitlement of 8.7, rounded to 9.

Derry City (Derry District Council) is a 4 member seat with a population of 107,877.

Derry County (the rest) is a 5 member seat with a population of 143,233.

Down
My least favourite county to do, and the one I'm sure can be improved upon. The county is the districts of Ards, Banbridge, Down, North Down, plus Mourne, parts of Castlereagh not given to Belfast, the remainder of Lisburn south of the Lagan and Donaghcloney from Craigavon.

Down North (North Down district plus the Ards peninsula itself) is a 4 member constituency with a population of 108,739

Down Mid (the county's portion of Castlereagh, the remainder of Ards district except Ballygowan and Killinchy, and Drumbo from Lisburn) is a 3 member constituency with a population of 91,101.

Down South East (Down district, plus Ballygowan and Killinchy) is a 3 member constituency with a population of 76,456 (a bit undersized. Could do with a ward or two from South West to balance it up).

Down South West (Banbridge, Mourne, the remaining bits of Lisburn and Donaghcloney) is a 4 member constituency with a population of 120,088.

Fermanagh and Tyrone
Fermanagh is too small to be a constituency on its own so has to be paired with Tyrone. Tyrone is Cookstown (minus the wards given to Derry), Dungannon, Omagh and Strabane districts. Fermanagh has a population of 61,805 and a theoretical entitlement of 2.15. Tyrone has a population of 180,472 and a theoretical entitlement to 6.8. Together the population is 242,277 and a theoretical entitlement of 8.4, rounded to 9.

Fermanagh and Tyrone South is the same as the current Westminster constituency, that is Fermanagh plus Dungannon without Coalisland and the neighbouring wards. It is a 4 member constituency with a population of 102,553.

Tyrone North (all the rest) is a 5 member constituency with a population of 139,724.

Belfast
As far as I can tell, I've added in the wards from Castlereagh and Lisburn that are to be given to an expanded Belfast City Council area if local government reform ever occurs. I may also have added the whole of Derryaghy and Seymour Hill which I don't think is included in that.

The city now has a population of 333,854 and a theoretical entitlement of 11.6, rounded to 11.

Belfast East (the initially proposed Belfast South East constituency from the 6th review plus those parts of Castlereagh) is a 4 member constituency with a population of 121,976.

Belfast North (the initially proposed Belfast North) is a 3 member constituency with a population of 90,567.

Belfast South (the initally proposed Belfast South West plus those parts of Lisburn) is a 4 member constituency with a population of 121,311.

[irish observer]

Apr 7, 2013 20:39:00 GMT piperdave said:

I've assumed that the Constituency Commission would not create a constituency which crosses the Border, although they easily could and it may be desireable in the Fermanagh/Leitrim area in particular.

The Constituency Commission, under there last review, were quite happy to apportion part of County Cavan into an enlarged Sligo-Leitrim 4 seat constituency. From 1992-2007 Longford and Roscommon were together as a four seat constituency despite being in different provinces. One major problem was that Longford votes would stay in Longford and Roscommon votes stay in Roscommon, none would cross the Shannon except most of the FG transfer. So constituencies that break provincial boundaries could be see as being frowned upon.

If you threw in Cavan Monaghan you might get other figures for Fermanagh and Tyrone and a homogeneous Ulster as Donegal would retain 5 seats. Leitrim could remain in Connacht either fully with Sligo or partitioned between her and Roscommon.

Its an impressive analysis. I will think of party combinations later.

[piperdave]

Once you start looking at the island as a whole, then yes all sorts of options would be on the table. But I would imagine initially at least that Dublin would be minded to protect the integrity of Northern Ireland.

Anyway, glad that no one seems to think it's an implausible boundary review thus far. And I managed to make some maps using the Boundary Assistant website and it seems to work out, although I still hate Down South West as a constituency.

[greatkingrat]

They cross county boundaries all the time in the Republic at the moment, so I doubt the North would be any different.

[irish observer]

Apr 8, 2013 21:36:23 GMT greatkingrat said:

They cross county boundaries all the time in the Republic at the moment, so I doubt the North would be any different.

They do. The point I was making above was that in this scenario nine county Ulster will re-emerge and the new constituencies will be drawn within the nine counties.

[johnloony]

I just want to see what the map looks like

[piperdave]

I realised I could use the Boundary Assistant to make one, which I have done. If someone can advise me how to post it on here, I shall do so!

[Deleted]

You can screengrab either with the PrintScreen button, or with the Snipping Tool on your computer, then save the image, upload it to photobucket, or imgur, and then post it here.

[piperdave]

Oh. I expected something more complicated! Give me a mo

[piperdave]

Belfast urban area


North: Antrim, Derry, north Tyrone


South: Fermanagh, south Tyrone, Armagh, Down

[East Anglian Lefty]

I could certainly see the Strabane area being combined in a constituency with parts of Donegal in the extremely unlikely event of the border disappearing. Lifford's been a dormitory suburb since at least the 1940s and Letterkenny is notably easier to get to than the likes of Cookstown.

[irish observer]

Using the above boundaries I have done some analysis using the most recent 2011 assembly election and 2011 council elections to determine effective quotas for each party in the new constituencies. This analysis makes a number of assumptions.

1) No party from the Republic of Ireland immediately enters the fray in the first election.
2) Unionist parties decide not to coalesce and fight the election as two separate entities. While I realise there is an inherent strategic flaw here this is easier from the point of view of electoral analysis and assumption of how transfers will flow.
3) If 2/5 of wards in one electoral district are being are apportioned to one constituency and the rest elsewhere the votes are divided by 2/5 and then 3/5 etc etc in the absence of other information.
3) The late great Neil T. Blaney once said under p.r. no-one who gets 0.8 of a quota can lose regardless of unpopularity.

Derry City: 2 comfortable SDLP quotas here (1.9) and 1 for Sinn Féin (1.7). There should be enough votes for 1 Unionist seat here. The DUP have 0.7q and the UUP have 0.2q. Recent elections have shown there is a good Unionist inter-transfer here but demographics should assist Sinn Féin in the future. I call it 2SDLP, 1SF, 1DUP.

Derry County: 2 safe Sinn Féin quotas here (1.96q) and definitely 1 for the DUP. This constituency has an overall slight Unionist majority. The SDLP have 0.87q and the UUP have 0.86. The DUP have 1.6q. There are some 6000 (0.73q) mostly Unionist transfers (incl. TUV) and only 1963 Alliance (0.23q) votes remain. Given that the Alliance votes are mostly from Coleraine they cannot be guaranteed to favour the SDLP and there is no SF surplus. The SDLP should lose out as a result. I call it 2SF, 2DUP, 1UUP.

Tyrone North: Nationalist majority here. I can see me being critiqued here. 2 definite SF seats here and a safe DUP seat (1.0q). The SDLP have 0.8q, at least on paper, given how disparate their organisation is here. In my opinion running a candidate from the Cookstown area with a sweeper in Omagh could get them a seat here. Overall SF have 2.6q, the UUP have 0.87q and there is just over 5000 votes (0.51q) of various Nationalist hues to transfer. While there are 1000 TUV (0.1q) votes to transfer this would not put the UUP over the quota. Assuming that SF apply the same ruthlessness in vote management as before, and that the Independent Nationalist vote transfers, a significant amount of which is ex-SDLP I predict that the UUP will be the last one standing. I call it 3SF, 1DUP, 1SDLP.

Fermanagh & Tyrone South: The removal of the Torrent ward (Coalisland etc) makes this in effect a barely Nationalist constituency. 1 seat each for the UUP (1.2q) and the DUP (1.0q). SF have 1.66q and the SDLP have 0.64q and SF secure 2 seats through most of the SDLP transfer. I call it 2SF, 1UUP, 1DUP.

Armagh South: A Nationalist constituency. You need to amend the map slightly as Donaghmore (Fews) is shown in Down South-West. 2 quotas for SF (2.0q) and 1 quota for the SDLP (1.1q). The UUP have historically have had an electoral advantage over the DUP in this area and this analysis gives them 0.95q to the DUP's 0.58q. I call it 2SF, 1SDLP, 1UUP.

Armagh North: A majority Unionist constituency. This area is going through significant demographic changes at present. 1 quota for the DUP (1.2q) and SF (1.06q). The DUP surplus will see the UUP (0.89q) over the quota. I call it 1DUP, 1SF, 1UUP.

Down South West: An interesting evenly split constituency. A safe quota for both the DUP (1.18q), UUP (1.16q) and the SDLP (1.08q) and the SDLP surplus would help SF (0.9q) over the quota. Only other significant votes are Alliance with 0.20 of a quota and the Banbridge votes would transfer to Nationalists while the Downshire votes would favour Unionists. I call it 1DUP, 1UUP, 1SDLP, 1SF. Were any wards to transfer out of here into Down South East it may impact the balance given how localised the Unionist and Nationalist vote is throughout with the Unionist dominance in the Downshire wards and Banbridge and the Nationalists ultra dominant in Crotlieve and with decent support in the Mournes.

Down South East: A majority Nationalist constituency. One safe SDLP seat (1.3q) and their surplus will help elect SF (0.88q). The DUP have 0.8q and will exceed the quota through transfers from the UUP (0.57q) and only Alliance votes remain (0.25q). I call it 1SDLP, 1SF, 1DUP.

Down North: An ultra Unionist constituency. 2 safe quotas for the DUP (2.18q) and a quota for the Alliance party (0.99q). The UUP (0.77q) will be helped over the quota by the DUP surplus and transfers from Independents which include Independent Unionists from North Down. I call it 2DUP, 1APNI, 1UUP.

Down Mid: A very interesting Unionist constituency. The DUP (1.8q) can be assured of 1 seat here but their professional vote management would make them favourites for a second seat. Alliance have 0.85q and can rely upon Nationalist transfers from the SDLP (0.34q) and SF (0.1q) to exceed the quota. UUP have 0.6q but do not have enough comparable transfers to secure a seat here. I call it 2DUP, 1APNI.

I have done an analysis of Antrim and Belfast also. I will post this tomorrow.

[irish observer]

Belfast South East: The DUP have at least 1 seat here (1.6q) and Alliance also have a safe quota(1.38q). The UUP have 0.65q and the combined Nationalist vote is less than a quota here with SDLP (0.36q) and SF (0.29q). There are 0.3q from the PUP and 0.15q from the Greens also to transfer. A 2 candidate DUP strategy would put that party the favourite for a second seat given the transfers that are available in this analysis. While Alliance votes from Castlereagh may be more amenable to the SDLP given that the majority of party's vote comes from Victoria which is, with the exception of Court, the strongest Unionist district in Belfast albeit with a different demographic we must assume most of the transfer will favour the UUP. In time demographics will assist the development of a nationalist seat here. For the moment I call it 2DUP, 1APNI, 1UUP.

Belfast South West: The map should be amended slightly as you have the Falls ward (Lower Falls) drawn in Belfast North. I have included all of Dunmurry Cross in this constituency and you need to amend the map shade in Derryvaghy and Seymour Hill. This remains the strongest nationalist constituency. SF have 2.8q and can be assumed favourites for 3 seats. The SDLP have 0.97q, bolstered by the addition of the South Belfast wards. Local election votes have shown that republican dissidents have been more amenable to transfer to the SDLP and there are (0.24q) of these. Between them there is not a Unionist quota here with the DUP having 0.44q and the UUP having 0.25q. The Unionists are affected here by the merger of the Shankill (Court) into one constituency which they have long objected to. Alliance have 0.34q here and I would argue it would be mathematically impossible to stop SF getting 3 seats even if all Unionists sat out the contest and encouraged votes for Alliance as the only way to stop SF getting 3 seats which is not going to happen. I call it 3SF, 1SDLP.

Belfast North: The DUP top the poll here (1.46q), closely followed by SF (1.23q). This constituency as drawn is majority Unionist thanks to the addition of the Shankill and the loss of the southern Newtownabbey wards where the catholic population has been growing. The UUP are not at the races with 0.3q while the SDLP (0.51q) can expect to benefit from the SF transfer and Alliance transfers (0.16q) given most come from Castle and, to a lesser extent Oldpark. There are 0.09q from PUP and 0.16q from Independents, mostly Independent Unionists. As the Unionist transfers will exceed that of the Nationalist I predict that the DUP will secure a second seat. As with Belfast South East demographic changes will make this third seat vulnerable overtime. For now I call it 2DUP, 1SF.

Antrim South: There are 2 safe DUP seats here (2.09q) and a Nationalist quota. The SDLP have (0.59q) and SF have (0.62q) in this analysis. This analysis gives the UUP 0.99q and accordingly I must give the third seat to that party. However, given that Alliance have 0.57q starting out and factoring in the disastrous leadership of Nesbitt, slippage in the UUP could benefit Alliance here significantly. Otherwise their elimination will elect the SDLP over SF given the nature of how transfers go between those parties. For the moment I call it 2DUP, 1UUP, 1SDLP.

Antrim East: This is a very interesting overwhelmingly Unionist constituency. There are at least 2 DUP seats (2.6q) and 1 each for the UUP (1.14q )and the Alliance (1.14q). A tight 3 candidate DUP strategy could put them in the running for a third seat but available transfers from the PUP (0.08q) and the TUV (0.09q) would not put them over the quota. A 2 candidate Alliance strategy could put them in the running for a second seat here given that they can expect to receive the majority of the available Nationalist transfer from the SDLP (0.25q) and SF (0.4q). Nationalist votes here come from Antrim Line in Newtownabbey. There is also a significant Independent vote here, mostly from Carrickfergus and Newtownabbey, of which Alliance can hope to benefit from to a significant extent. It would be a bumsqueaker for the last seat but I give it to Alliance at the moment. I call it 2DUP, 2APNI, 1UUP.

Antrim North: A majority Unionist constituency. 2 safe DUP seats here (2.02q) and a Nationalist quota. SF have 0.69q and the SDLP have 0.5q and SF will take the seat through the SDLP transfer and some of the Independent votes from Moyle, total Independent quota (0.45q). The UUP have 0.77q and the TUV have 0.5q. Jim Allister can be expected to poll ahead of his party, given his status, but in this analysis the last seat must be given to the UUP. I call it 2DUP, 1SF, 1UUP.

Summation
Derry City (4): 2SDLP, 1SF, 1DUP.
Derry County (5): 2SF, 2DUP, 1UUP.
Tyrone North (5): 3SF, 1DUP, 1SDLP.
Fermanagh & Tyrone South (4): 1UUP, 1DUP, 2SF.
Armagh South (4): 2SF, 1SDLP, 1UUP.
Armagh North (3): 1DUP, 1SF, 1UUP.
Down South-West (4): 1DUP, 1UUP, 1SDLP, 1SF.
Down South-East (3): 1SDLP, 1SF, 1DUP.
Down North (4): 2DUP, 1APNI, 1UUP.
Down Mid (3): 2DUP, 1APNI.
Belfast South-East (4): 2DUP, 1APNI, 1UUP.
Belfast South-West (4): 3SF, 1SDLP.
Belfast North (3): 2DUP, 1SF.
Antrim South (4): 2DUP, 1UUP, 1SDLP.
Antrim East (5): 2DUP, 1UUP, 2APNI.
Antrim North (4): 2DUP, 1SF, 1UUP.

Total (63): 22DUP, 18SF, 10 UUP, 8SDLP, 5APNI.

Enjoyable exercise, thanks to piperdave for doing the map. One qualification with some of the analysis is the apportionment of votes from the electoral districts that have wards split into new constituencies but I did the best I could.

[piperdave]

And thanks to you Irish Observer for crunching the numbers!

[Pete Whitehead]

I hate to introduce some pedantry into this, but Portrush is County Antrim

[irish observer]

Apr 13, 2013 15:09:13 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I hate to introduce some pedantry into this, but Portrush is County Antrim

Dunluce (Coleraine East) and Portrush (Skerries) will have to be added into Antrim North and out of Derry South. I will do this once I determine if there are any more to be taken out.

[piperdave]

Apr 13, 2013 15:09:13 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

I hate to introduce some pedantry into this, but Portrush is County Antrim

Why didn't you say this earlier?? Plus I did look at this issue quite extensively and everything I found suggested I got the right Antrim/Derry boundary at least as far as the last hundred years is concerned. I wasn't planning on going back any further than that. But if that's what it was, I'm happy to be corrected by those that know better.

[erlend]

A look at wiki says

Portrush (from Irish: Port Rois, meaning "promontory port")[2] is a small seaside resort town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on the County Londonderry border.

Which is probably a reason for me not to do pedantry as that is probably the only source I would have used!

[piperdave]

Looks like I should have dug out my Municipal Yearbook 1972 earlier which confirms Portrush in Co. Antrim. *sigh*

[piperdave]

4,022 people moved. It doesn't make any difference to my constituency plan after checking it all. Hope it's right this time! Or as right as a very far-fetched hypothetical scenario can be.