National Party of Northern Ireland?

[RBinge]

I am completely puzzled why the wiki has the title "National Party of Northern Ireland" on it as the authoritative name for the Nationalist Party.

Google "National Party of Northern Ireland" - you get eleven entries which are either derived from the politics.ie wiki or from the revert war on Wikipedia where one contributor insisted in the face of every other contributor that this was indeed the name of the party.

Given that few Nationalists referred to the Six Counties as "Northern Ireland" much before the nineties this supposed title doesn't make any sense whatsoever and seems to denigrate the Nationalist Party as not being Irish Nationalists at all.

Lousy proof reading in one book is not an authoritative source, especially when it contradicts all other sources available on the subject.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/organ/norgan.htm#np

This is a link to the CAIN academic website. It refers to the Nationalist Party, and an academic textbook referring to the Nationalist Party.

http://www.proni.gov.uk/records/polpar.htm

A link to documents held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, referring to the Nationalist Party and the Anti Partition League, not any purported "National Party of Northern Ireland"

http://www.proni.gov.uk/records/private/cahir_h.htm

A very interesting piece about Cahir Healy, leading Nationalist politician. No mention anywhere about a "National Party of Northern Ireland" but plenty of background about the fragmentary nature of the Nationalist Party.

More sources to come if needed.

[Whig]

I wondered about this at the time, it was quite a heated time really, and with other debates, like how many TDs there were in the Second Dáil, I didn't pursue Padraig on the National Party, but it's never looked right to me. Equally, I've always seen it referred to as the Nationalist Party, or something else, but never the National Party. Padraig, if you read this, where did you base the party name on?

[padraig]

There never really was a party as the National or nationalist party, just a loose collection of independents with no main party organisation, policy as decided at constituency level by each local group, even the issue of abstentionism that they occasionaly used was decided at local level on a per candidate basis.

They came about from the remainents of the old Irish Parliamentary Party remaining in the 6 counties after partition, they are refered to as the National Party or Nationalist party of Northern Ireland, Nationalist or Nationalist party depending on the source.

In the late 60's there was a attempt to create a proper party structure with a annual party Ard Fheis, but these came to little to late to save the party, and most of its members joined the Irish Independence Party when that was formed.

[RBinge]

But why, if every original souce cites the party name as the Nationalist Party why does the wiki persist with "National Party of Northern Ireland"? I can't think of any Nationalist of that generation that would use "Northern Ireland", no matter how fragmentary the organisation was. It simply does not ring true and if proved to be untrue undermines the politics.ie wiki as an authoritative resource.

Do you have access to original Party documentation from the 1960s that specifically used the name "National Party of Northern Ireland" or is it all based on two English published books that came out long after the demise of the organisation?