Prime Minister of Northern Ireland

The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland was the de facto head of the Government of Northern Ireland. No such office was provided for in the Government of Ireland Act 1920. However the Lord Lieutenant, as with Governors-General in other Westminster Systems such as in Canada, chose to appoint someone to head the executive even though no such post existed in statute law. The office-holder assumed the title Prime Minister to draw parallels with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. On the advice of the new Prime Minister, the Lord Lieutenant then created the Department of the Prime Minister. The office of Prime Minister of Northern Ireland was abolished in 1972, along with the Stormont government, when direct rule of Northern Ireland was returned to London.

The Government of Ireland Act provided for the appointment of the Executive Committee of the Privy Council by the Governor. No parliamentary vote was required. Nor, theoretically, was the Executive Committee and its prime minister responsible to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland. In reality the Governor chose the leader of the party with a majority in the House to form a government. On each occasion this was the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, such was the UUP's electoral dominance using both a simple plurality and for the first two elections, a proportional electoral system.

The Prime Minister's residence from 1920 until 1922 was Cabin Hill, later to become the junior school for Campbell College. After 1922 Stormont Castle was used, though some prime ministers chose to live in Stormont House, the unused residence of the Speaker of the House of Commons.

A new office of First Minister of Northern Ireland was created by the Belfast Agreement in 1998. In contrast with the Westminster style of the earlier Stormont regime, the new power-sharing assembly operates on the principles of consociational democracy.

Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland

#	Name	Took Office	Left Office	Party		Cabinet
1.	The Viscount Craigavon	June 7 1921	November 24 1940 (death)	Craigavon Ministry
2.	John Miller Andrews	November 27 1940	May 1 1943	Andrews Ministry
3.	The Viscount Brookeborough	May 1 1943	March 26 1963	Brookeborough Ministry
4.	Terence O'Neill	March 25 1963	May 1 1969	O'Neill Ministry
5.	James Chichester-Clark	May 1 1969	March 23 1971	Chichester-Clark Ministry
6.	Brian Faulkner	March 23 1971	March 30 1972	Faulkner Ministry

Footnotes

Sources

• Alan J. Ward, The Irish Constitutional Tradition (Irish Academic Press, 1994)
• Government of Ireland Act, 1920