Westminster '97
NORTH ANTRIM CANDIDATE JAMES McCARRY
CONSTITUENCY PROFILE
Antrim
Three constituencies make up the Antrim Westminster profile and three unionist MPs have been ritually dispatched to Westminster. DUP leader Ian Paisley in North Antrim is the most well known of the three MPs as Roy Beggs in East Antrim and Clifford Forsythe in South Antrim have a considerably quieter public life than angry Ian. However there could just be a change this year in the ratio of two Ulster Unionists to Paisley.
Roy Beggs won the then newly created East Antrim seat from the DUP in 1983 by 367 votes. Voting pacts kept Beggs in the seat in 1987 and he won by over 7,000 votes from the DUP in 1992. However, in last May's elections the gap between the Democratic and Ulster Unionists was less than 500 votes and Jack McKee could now replace him on the green leather benches of Westminster.
The Sinn Fein candidates are Chrissie McAuley in East Antrim, James McCarry in North and Henry Cushnihan in South Antrim. Sinn Fein took 5,347 votes out of these three constituencies in 1996 and this sets a target for 1997.