Seamus Close
| Seamus Close | |
|---|---|
| Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Lagan Valley |
|
|
In office 25 June 1998 – 7 March 2007 |
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| Preceded by | New Creation |
| Succeeded by | Trevor Lunn |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Seamus Anthony Close 12 August 1947 |
| Political party | Alliance |
| Spouse(s) | Dierdre |
Seamus Anthony Close OBE (born 12 August 1947) is a Northern Irish politician, former member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Lagan Valley and a former deputy leader of the Alliance Party.
In August 1981 he was the Alliance candidate for the second Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election. The following year under the redistribution and expansion of Northern Ireland's constituencies his local political base became part of the new Lagan Valley constituency which he has contested in the Alliance interest in all elections since 1983 apart from the 1986 by-election called in protest against the Anglo-Irish Agreement when the local Alliance branch declined to contest the seat as they believed the by-election was a political stunt.
Close also held several positions in the Alliance, including serving as Chair between 1981 and 1982 and as Deputy Leader from 1991 until 2001. He was often a member of the key Alliance delegations in successive talks about the future of the province, culminating in the Belfast Agreement of 1998.
In the 1996 elections for the Northern Ireland Forum Close stood at the head of the Alliance's list for Lagan Valley but the party failed to secure enough votes to win one of the local seats. Close was also included on the province-wide list and as the most senior Alliance member to not be elected locally he won one of Alliance's two seats. In the 1998 election for the new Northern Ireland Assembly he topped the poll in Lagan Valley and gained a further personal triumph in the 2001 general election when he had the highest vote share of any Alliance candidate.
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