The 1993 Local Government Elections in Northern Ireland

Map by Conal Kelly

The Elections

The elections for Northern Ireland's 26 local councils took place on 19 May 1993. This was the sixth set of elections since the local councils were reorganised in 1973. Councillors are elected for a four-year term by Single Transferable Vote from local electoral areas returning five, six or seven councillors. You can look at all the local election results since 1973 here, and the 1997 results here.

These elections are of particular interest because the boundaries on which they were fought were new. Election boundaries for local elections in Northern Ireland are set at roughly ten-year intervals; thus the boundaries used in the first elections in 1973 were again used in 1977 and 1981; they were then revised in time for the 1985 elections, and these boundaries were again used in 1989; the 1993 boundaries were again revised, and these boundaries were used in 1997 and will be used again in the 2001 local elections.

The Results

These were the first elections I really got involved in after rejoining the Alliance Party (I had originally joined when I was at school, but had lapsed while studying at Cambridge). My memory of polling day is of handing out leaflets for Stephen Farry outside a polling station in Bangor, accompanied only by a Kilfedderite on a similar mission. Over the next two days I got to attend the Belfast counts in the City Hall, starting with Upper Falls. Having made myself useful I became Alliance's Director of Elections in September.

The results are interesting in a way because they weren't very different from those of four years before. They gave quite a false impression of a stability having been reached in the Northern Ireland party system; the Conservative challenge failed to materialise, Dem Left and the Workers Party were disappearing off the map separately rather than together, and the Ulster Popular Unionist Party would stay around until Jim Kilfedder died (though nobody expected that to happen quite as soon as it did). But in fact there was a demographic bubble about to surface, and Sinn Féin were the ones who benefited from it from 1996 (perhaps even 1994) onwards.

I have taken my figures from Gordon Lucy's excellent book, occasionally corrected by my personal notes.(See also spreadsheet archive.)


UUP 184082 29% 197 cllrs
SDLP 136760 22% 127 cllrs
DUP 108680 17% 103 cllrs
SF 77600 12% 51 cllrs
Alliance 47658 8% 44 cllrs
Conservatives 9438 1% 6 cllrs
Workers Party 4827 1% 1 cllr
Labour 3981 1% 1 cllr
PUP 2350 0.37% 1 cllr
Dem Left 2288 0.36% 1 cllr
UDP 2181 0.35% 1 cllr
UPUP 1730 0.27% 3 cllrs
Greens 1257 0.20%
Action 93 871 0.14% 1 cllr
Independent Unionists 19506 3% 21 cllrs
All others 25987 4% 24 cllrs

Total valid vote: 629,106; Percentage turnout: 55.0%

Action '93 was a coalition of independent councillors in volatile North Down.


This graph contrasts the first preference votes across the whole of Northern Ireland in the local government elections of 2001, 1997, 1993, 1989, 1985, 1981, 1977 and 1973.

Details of distribution of seats on the 26 District Councils

In the table below, changes for the main parties since 1989 are indicated by + or - signs, so for instance 8-- in the box for the UUP on Antrim council indicates that this was a decrease from 10 councillors at the 1989 elections. I have not done this in the 'Others' column. Also I have not allowed for by-elections or changes of allegiance between 1989 and 1993. However I have indicated those councils where the total number of seats was increased. (NB there was no change in party strengths or total council size in Larne.)

Council UUP DUP SDLP SF APNI Cons Others Total Seats
Antrim 8-- 3- 4 1+ 2+ 0 1 Ind U 19
Ards 9+ 6- 0 0 6++ 0 1 Ind U, 1 Ind 23+++
Armagh 10- 2 9+ 1 0 0 0 22
Ballymena 10+++ 9--- 2+ 0 1 0 2 Ind U 24+
Ballymoney 6 6 3 0 0 0 1 Ind 16
Banbridge 10+ 2 3 0 1+ 0 1 Ind 17++
Belfast 15+ 9+ 9+ 10++ 5- 0 1 PUP, 2 Ind U 51
Carrickfergus 5+ 2- 0 0 6++ 1 3 Inds 17++
Castlereagh 6 9 0 0 5+ 0 1 UPUP, 2 Ind U 23++
Coleraine 12++ 5 3+ 0 2 0 0 22+
Cookstown 5++ 3-- 5 2 0 0 1 Ind U 16
Craigavon 10-- 4 6 2+ 2 0 1 WP, 1 Ind U 26
Derry 2- 5+ 17++ 5 0 0 1 Ind U 30
Down 7- 3+ 13+ 0 0- 0 0 23
Dungannon 8 3 4- 5++ 0 0 1 DL, 1 Ind 22
Fermanagh 10 2 5 3- 0 0 1 Ind Nat, 2 Inds 23
Larne 7 4 0 0 2 0 2 Inds 15
Limavady 6- 1 7+ 1 0 0 0 15
Lisburn 16+ 3-- 3 3+ 2 1 1 UDP, 1 Ind U 30++
Magherafelt 3- 4+ 5+ 4+ 0 0 0 16+
Moyle 2 3+ 3- 1 0 0 2 Ind U, 2 Ind N, 2 Ind 15
Newry and Mourne 6 1+ 15-- 5+ 0 0 3 Inds 30
Newtownabbey 10 5- 1 0 4 0 4 Ind U, 1 Lab 25
North Down 6+ 3- 0 0 5+ 4 2 UPUP, 2 Ind U, 2 Ind, 1 Action '93 25+
Omagh 4- 3 5- 6 1+ 0 1 Ind Nat, 1 Lab 21
Strabane 4+ 3 5++ 2 0- 0 1 Ind U, 1 Ind 16+
Total 197 103 127 51 44 6 54 582

Difficulties with categorisation

In an under-reported election like this, it is not very surprising that sources differ from each other particularly about the smaller parties and the designation of independent candidates. My figures above differ from both Gordon Lucy's book and Flackes and Elliott (which is the source used by CAIN) in a number of details. I stand by my own interpretation but in the interests of fairness record the differences below:

Parliamentary constituencies


See also:

Other sites based at ARK: ORB (Online Research Bank) | CAIN (Conflict Archive on the INternet) | Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey

Your comments, please! Send an email to me at nicholas.whyte@gmail.com.

Nicholas Whyte, 19 August 1999; last updated 20 June 2003 by Tineke Vaes.



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