district MLAs = East Londonderry
DUP: 3
Independent: 1
Sinn Féin: 1
SDLP
However Ford had much greater transfer appeal and finished 180 votes ahead of Meehan at the end of a dramatic three-way fight for the last two seats, with the SDLP's Thomas Burns just 14 votes ahead of Ford.
district MLAs = Fermanagh & South Tyrone & Mid Ulster
Sinn Féin: 6
DUP: 1
SDLP: 1
UUP
The Northern Ireland State Papers of 1980 show that together with John Hume and Austin Currie he played a key role in presenting the SDLP'S 'Three Strands' approach to the Thatcher Government's Secretary of State Humphrey Atkins in April 1980 (Irish Times, 30 December 2010).
It was boosted in the late 1970s by the defection of a prominent Protestant Larne SDLP councillor, John Turnley, later the party chairman, who was killed in 1980 in Carnlough, County Antrim by an attack claimed by the Ulster Defence Association.
Fine Gael, after trying and failing to get former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and former Tánaiste Peter Barry to run, ultimately nominated the former civil rights campaigner and SDLP member Austin Currie.
Seamus Mallon, a Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1982 was disqualified because he had been a member of the Irish Seanad at the time of his election.
district MLAs = Newry and Armagh & South Down
Sinn Féin: 5
SDLP: 3
DUP: 2
UUP
His funeral was attended by a large crowd, including politicians from both sides of the sectarian divide - the SDLP's Lord Fitt and the DUP leader, the Reverend Ian Paisley.
They saw their fears confirmed when SDLP councillor Hugh Logue publicly described the Council of Ireland as "the vehicle that would trundle unionists into a united Ireland" in a speech at Trinity College, Dublin.