Despite conventionally being referred to as a single organisation, the party long existed only as a loose network of small groups, generally operating in a single constituency. Its candidates for both Westminster and Stormont elections were selected by conventions organised on a constituency basis. These arrangements changed in 1966, when a single organisation covering the whole of Northern Ireland was established. The Nationalist Party did not enter the first
House of Commons of Northern Ireland despite winning six seats in the
1921 general election. Leader
Joe Devlin took his seat shortly after the
1925 general election and his colleagues followed gradually by October 1927. Intermittently thereafter the party engaged in further periods of
abstention, to protest against the "illegal"
partition of Ireland. In 1965, it agreed to become the official opposition party in the House of Commons. This was one of the catalysts of the
civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. The party became involved in the
Derry civil rights march in October 1968, which ended in violence amidst allegations of
police brutality. As a result, the party withdrew from its role as
official opposition on 15 October 1968, following the controversy of two weeks earlier. Earlier, many members had formed the
National Democratic Party (NDP) after attempts at reform failed. The NDP merged into the
Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) at that party's foundation in 1970 and many remaining nationalists followed them. One of the Nationalist Party's last electoral contests was the
1973 election for the Assembly created as part of the
Sunningdale Agreement. The lack of success in that election meant that the inevitable outcome was obvious, although a handful of councillors were elected to
Omagh District Council and
Derry City Council in
1973 and
1977. In October 1977, the party merged with
Unity to form the
Irish Independence Party which also included non-aligned
republicans. Although it was successful for a while in capturing the Republican vote, it faded from view due to the rise of
Sinn Féin in the early 1980s. ==Leaders==