County Armagh had been
represented by two seats in the
Irish House of Commons. From 1 January 1801, when the
Acts of Union 1800 came into effect, it was represented by a county constituency with two MPs in the
United Kingdom House of Commons. It consisted of County Armagh, except the parts in the
parliamentary borough constituencies of
Armagh City and
Newry. The borough of
Charlemont was disfranchised in 1801. The
First Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1801 was composed of all members of the
Parliament of Great Britain and members continuing from areas which were enfranchised in Ireland. Catholics were excluded from taking seats until the enactment of the
Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829. Under the
Parliamentary Elections (Ireland) Act 1829, the traditional county 40 shilling
freehold landowning qualification was changed to a £10 qualification (which was an increase to five times the previous level). Before the
Representation of the People Act 1884, there was a restrictive property-based franchise. It was not until the householder franchise was introduced for county elections, in the electoral reforms which took effect in 1885, that most (but not all) adult males became voters. In these circumstances, most members of parliament came from a limited number of
Protestant aristocratic and gentry families. There were few contested elections. In the first half-century or so after the union, the constituency was fairly evenly balanced between Whig/Liberal and Tory/Conservative parties. Thereafter the area became more Conservative. In 1885, under the
Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, it was split into
Mid Armagh,
North Armagh and
South Armagh. In 1922, following the establishment of the
Parliament of Northern Ireland, the number of seats in
Northern Ireland at Westminster was cut from 30 to 13 under the
Government of Ireland Act 1920. The single-seat constituency of Armagh consisted of the entirety of County Armagh. From its inception, Armagh had a unionist majority, though by the 1970s the nationalist vote was in the mid-30s%. In 1951, it was one of the last four seats to be uncontested in a UK general election, and in 1954 it saw the last uncontested by-election in the UK. In 1974 the Ulster Unionist Party repudiated the
Sunningdale Agreement and so did not reselect the pro-Sunningdale MP,
John Maginnis. Instead, they ran
Harold McCusker, who held the seat until
1983. He was then elected for
Upper Bann, which contained part of Armagh. In 1983 most of the constituency became part of the
Newry and Armagh constituency, with part going to
Upper Bann. ==Members of Parliament==