Start date May 1924 | ||
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The 1924 Northern Irish local elections were held in January & June 1924 for the various county & district councils of Northern Ireland. The election followed the redrawing of electoral districts and the abolition of PR for local elections in Northern Ireland, and as a result was largely boycotted by nationalists, who suffered heavy losses.
Background
The elections were the first local elections to be held in Northern Ireland, which had been created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Northern Irelands' county & district councils had last been elected in the all-Ireland 1920 Irish local elections using the Single transferable vote voting system, which had been introduced in the hopes of preventing Sinn Féin from winning the same kind of landslide that the FPTP ward system had allowed it in the 1918 general election.
Whilst Unionists in southern Ireland had supported the introduction of STV for local elections, Ulsters Unionists had opposed it, with the UUPs' leader James Craig favouring retention of the FPTP ward system used in the rest of Britain, and the UUP was committed to returning to the old system. In contrast, Nationalists favoured the retention of a proportional representation based system as a safeguard for minorities.
The Northern Irish parliament legislated for a return to the old FPTP system in 1922, and also legislated for the redrawing of electoral divisions.