30 March 1972 (suspended) 18 July 1973 (abolished)
suspended in 1972 and then abolished in 1973, along with the contemporary government, when direct rule of Northern Ireland was transferred to London.
The Government of Ireland Act provided for the appointment of the executive committee of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland by the governor.[4] No parliamentary vote was required. Nor, theoretically, was the executive committee and its prime minister responsible to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland. In reality the governor chose the leader of the party with a majority in the House to form a government. On each occasion this was the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party; such was the UUP's electoral dominance using both a simple plurality and for the first two elections, a proportional electoral system. All prime ministers of Northern Ireland were members of the Orange Order.[5]
^Alan J. Ward, The Irish Constitutional Tradition, p.111.
^The new office of governor had not yet come into being because its creation required an amendment to the original Act. The lord lieutenant of Ireland had originally been granted the role and exercised the powers, functions and duties pending the creation of governor's post in 1922. Ward, p.116.
^"Who are the Orangemen?". BBC News. 11 July 2012. By the 20th century, the Order had pervaded the highest echelons of society. Every prime minister of Northern Ireland, from Partition in 1921 to the return of direct rule in 1972, was an Orangeman, as are a number of current ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive.
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