#GE2019 profile: Newry and Armagh has a young growing population, but is politically stagnant – Slugger O’Toole

In old money this constituency is mostly central and south Co Armagh which slices into Newry as far as the old boundary on the Clanrye river as it heads for Carlingford Lough but it leaves most of the more Protestant/Unionist northern part of the historic county within neighbouring Upper Bann.

The population is younger than most other constituencies, which comes with a large housing need amongst that lower aged cohort. Even so theres been a massive expansion of house building the area to the west of Newry which is creating a light conurbation that stretches almost as far Crossmaglen.

The economy has been transformed through focused community initiatives like Work In Newry (WIN) by exploiting the European Single Market Act after the abolition of lengthy customs stops from 1992 and the IRAs ceasefire which that ended its economic war just two years later.

The net effect of splitting the old county constituency up has been to create a stable nationalist majority, with Sinn Fin regularly holding three Assembly seats since the 2007 election. On the nationalist side, the SDLP has struggled badly ever since Seamus Mallon stepped back in 2005.

After that election, Conor Murphy put his definitive stamp on the post. For a time he was MP, MLA and Minister for Regional Development, from which one of the most tangible products was brining Newry one of the most slick and modern railway stations in Northern Ireland.

However, the stations continued disconnection from the Belfast suburban line means that whilenine trains leave Portadown and arrive in Belfast city centre at or before 9.30 am only one leaves Newry in time. The new Belfast Regional City Deal is being driven locally by the council, not the Assembly.

After double jobbing legislation came Murphy stepped down and the personable and well-liked Mickey Brady stepped in for the 2015 election, easily holding Murphys vote total. Despite being low profile compared with Murphy, in 2017 he boosted his percentage by a handy 6.8%.

His main advantage is that there is no obvious challenger. Because the Catholic/Protestant split is roughly 70/30, the only likely long term change lies almost entirely within the nationalist camp. Last time out, however, local sitting SDLP MLA Justin McNulty ceded further ground to the Sinn Fin man.

This time they are running a young, gay councillor from Crossmaglen Pete Byrne who won a council seat on Newry, Mourne and Down District Council in May. This will be a test, not so much to see if hes a future MP, so much as to whether he has potential as a second assembly candidate.

Local MLA William Irwin easily should top the Unionist poll for the DUP after he completely took the wind out of Sam Nicholson (UUP)s sails in 2017, with Jackie Coade (Alliance) and Martin Kelly (Aont) bringing up the rear from a long way back

Likely winner: Mickey Brady. Everyone else is approximately nowhere.

Westminster Bridge, London by Arran Bee is licensed under CC BY

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

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#GE2019 profile: Newry and Armagh has a young growing population, but is politically stagnant - Slugger O'Toole