Belfast South by-election, 1982
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The Belfast South by-election was held on 4 March 1982 following the death of Robert Bradford, Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Member of Parliament for Belfast South.
Bradford had held the seat since the February 1974 general election, initially for the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party, but since 1978 as a UUP member. He was murdered by the Provisional IRA on 14 November 1981 while holding a political surgery in a community centre in Finaghy. Unusually, the Seanad Éireann passed a motion of sympathy for his death.
While Belfast South was one of the UUP's strongest seats, they had suffered several electoral setbacks, and had lost two other Belfast seats to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) at the 1979 general election. The DUP had not contested Belfast South in 1979, so when they announced their intention to contest the by-election, many commentators expected them to win the seat.
The UUP decided to stand Martin Smyth; a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and former Grand Master of the Orange Order who had been associated with the Vanguard Movement of which Bradford had been a member, although Smyth had never followed Vanguard out of the UUP. The DUP stood William McCrea, a minister of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and member of Magherafelt District Council who had been associated with the Third Force paramilitary group. The other Unionist party to stand in 1979, the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, had dissolved in Autumn 1981.
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