In the
Northern Ireland local elections of May 1981,
Peter Emerson, Avril McCandless and Malcolm Samuels stood as the first candidates to use the Ecology label in Northern Ireland and gained 202, 81 and 61 votes respectively; the first in a large urban area, the other two in smaller rural constituencies. Emerson had previously stood in the same area in 1977. In May 1983, the Northern Ireland Ecology Party was launched at a press conference held in the
Europa Hotel, Belfast, with members of the British and Irish Ecology parties in attendance. At the same time, the three parties put forward one combined policy on Northern Ireland, the first time that UK and Irish political parties had held a common Northern Ireland policy. In 1985, ecology parties throughout the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom changed their names to Green Party. The party became a region of the
Green Party of Ireland in 2006. In 2010, the LGBT Greens NI were established: a policy group and lobby group specialising in LGBT community issues within Northern Ireland. The LGBT group dissolved in early 2012 as their main aim—pushing for the inclusion of same-sex marriage within party policy—was achieved at the 2011 AGM after a unanimous vote. The party supported a no vote in the
2011 Alternative Vote referendum. In February 2015, the Queer Greens party group was set up to become the LGBT issues and activist wing of the party. The group is taking charge of party policy on
LGBT rights, issues, welfare, campaigning, lobbying and raising awareness. On 14 January 2016, the party announced that it had selected Ellen Murray as its candidate to contest the
2016 Northern Ireland Assembly elections for West Belfast, making her the first openly transgender person to stand for election on the island of Ireland. In June 2023, the party got their first ever mayoral role when
Áine Groogan was made the deputy
lord mayor of Belfast. ==Policies==