Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is one of the leading political parties in Northern Ireland, a division of the United Kingdom. The DUP and other unionist parties seek to maintain Northern Ireland’s union with the United Kingdom. Such parties also see themselves as protectors of British and Protestant culture in Northern Ireland.
The DUP was founded in 1971 during one of the most violent periods of conflict in Northern Ireland. Ian Paisley, a Protestant minister, helped found the party and became its leader. Members of the DUP serve at many levels of government in Northern Ireland, as well as in both the British and European Union parliaments.
About half the people of Northern Ireland are Protestants, as are most people in the rest of the United Kingdom. Most of the other half of Northern Ireland’s population is Roman Catholic, as are most people in the Republic of Ireland. In Northern Ireland, most Protestants are unionists, and most Roman Catholics are nationalists. The conflict between unionists and nationalists led to decades of violence (see Troubles).
At the time of its founding, the DUP supported only unionist rule of Northern Ireland and resisted measures that gave power to nationalists. The party opposed attempts to find cooperative solutions to the conflict. It refused to work with Sinn Féin, a leading nationalist party, because of that party’s ties to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary organization. In 2005, however, the IRA renounced violence. In 2007, Sinn Féin voted to cooperate with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Such changes led unionists and nationalists to resume a British-Irish coalition government in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
In 2006, the Northern Ireland Assembly met for the first time since the United Kingdom’s Parliament had suspended it in 2002. DUP leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams met for the first time in 2007, and they agreed to work together in Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government.
See also Northern Ireland (History); Paisley, Ian; Robinson, Peter David.
