Ministry of Home Affairs (Northern Ireland)

The Minister of Home Affairs was a member of the Executive Committee of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland (Cabinet) in the Parliament of Northern Ireland which governed Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1972. The Minister of Home Affairs was responsible for a range of non-economic domestic matters, although for a few months in 1953 the office was combined with that of the Minister of Finance.

Under the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland) 1922, the Minister was enabled to make any regulation necessary to preserve or re-establish law and order in Northern Ireland. The act specifically entitled him to ban parades, meetings, and publications, and to forbid inquests.[1]

One of the position's more problematic duties was responsibility for parades in Northern Ireland under the Special Powers Act and from 1951 the Public Order Act. Parading was (and is) extremely contentious in Northern Ireland, and so the Minister was bound to anger one community or other regardless of what decision he made. Ministers generally allowed parades by the Orange Order and other Protestant groups to go where they wanted, while restricting nationalist parades to Catholic areas and banning republican or anti-partitionist parades. Communist and other far-left parades were also sometimes banned. From time to time Ministers, for example Brian Maginess, attempted to administer the parading issue more fairly, but usually suffered career damage as a result. The parading issue may be the reason why the Home Affairs portfolio changed hands more often than most other Ministerial positions.

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