Name David Overend | Role Artist | |
David Anthony Overend (born 1932 or 1933) is an artist and former loyalist politician in Northern Ireland.
Born in Birstall, West Yorkshire, Overend painted from his youth, before meeting and marrying a woman from Belfast, moving to the city and continuing his artwork.
He soon became a leading activist in the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP). Known as the party's leading member in the Shankill Road area, he stood for the NILP in Belfast Shankill at the Northern Ireland general election, 1965, taking 32.6% of the vote and again in 1969, when he dropped back to 15.4%. He also stood in the UK general election, 1966 in Belfast North, taking 42.6% of the vote, the party's second-best result of the election.
In 1977, Overend resigned from the NILP along with colleague Jim McDonald, and joined Hugh Smyth's new Independent Unionist Group, later to become the Progressive Unionist Party. He and Smyth shared a vision of creating a political programme for working-class loyalist communities, and Overend wrote many of the new party's policy documents, and included many ideas from the NILP.
In 1979, Overend accompanied Smyth, McDonald and John Irvine on a tour of Canada in 1979, and then met with United States State Department officials, after Smyth and McDonald were refused American visas. He stood for Belfast City Council for his new party at the Northern Ireland local elections, 1981, but was not elected.