Fears grow that gerrymandering will follow the abolition of proportional representation in north

Derry, 25 October 1922 – Derry Corporation has heard that the abolition of proportional representation (PR) and the gerrymandering of electoral wards are intended to deprive nationalists of fair representation.

Alderman Hugh O’Doherty, Mayor of Derry, said that unionists had forgotten that the system of PR had been introduced at the request of southern unionists to secure appropriate representation for minorities. He also pointed out that the nationalist majority in Derry had acted fairly towards the unionist minority in the matter of public appointments.

However, Algernon Skeffington, Lord Massereene, has insisted that the reappraisal of electoral wards has been defended as a necessary corollary of the decision to abandon the system of PR. Skeffington, moving the second reading of the Local Authorities Bill in the Senate of Northern Ireland, declared that proportional representation had been ‘tried upon the dog, and the dog was sick of it’.

An editorial carried in today’s Irish Independent points out that the PR system had secured representation almost in proportion to their numbers for the nationalist minority in the six counties. However, ‘on the grounds that ‘irregularities’ must be removed this system has been abolished, and to make it next to impossible for the minority to return any members to local bodies the electoral areas are to be redistributed on the approved gerrymandering principle.’

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]