James Molyneaux was born in Co. Antrim in 1920 to an Anglican farming family. During World War II he served in the RAF and took part in the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He served as a Unionist councillor in the years after the war and was secretary of the South Antrim Unionist Association from 1964 to 1970. Molyneaux was in 1970.
elected MP for Antrim South
He opposed Brian Faulkner’s support for the Sunningdale Agreement and instead called for integration with Britain, with the British government maintaining direct rule in Northern Ireland. Molyneaux ran for the Unionist Party leadership after Faulkner resigned in 1974 but was beaten by Harry West. He succeeded West as Unionist Party leader in 1979. His prime aim was to strengthen the party in the face of growing support for Ian Paisley’s DUP. Molyneaux’s integrationist policy was challenged by many in his party, who wanted the Stormont parliament restored. Molyneaux objected strongly to the British government holding talks with the Irish government about the inclusion of an Irish dimension in Northern Irish affairs during the early 1980s. When the Anglo-Irish Agreement was announced in 1985, he and other Unionist Party MPs resigned their Westminster seats in protest.
He retook the seat in the subsequent by-election. He joined with Paisley to protest against the Anglo- Irish Agreement but soon withdrew from their joint action after he witnessed Paisley’s apparent association with loyalist paramilitaries. The Anglo-Irish Agreement greatly weakened
As a unionist leader Jim Molyneaux was wary of political initiatives and often seemed reluctant about cross-party engagement, as well as strongly opposed to structuring British-Irish relationships. These dimensions were evident in his pursuit of the North’s “total integration” as part of the UK.’
Molyneaux’s leadership of the Unionist Party. Many felt that he had failed to protect unionist interests. He remained as leader until 1995, when David Trimble succeeded him. Molyneaux continued to play an active role in politics, always maintaining his strong unionist views, opposing the peace process and sometimes openly criticising Trimble’s support for it. After Molyneaux’s death in 2015, the SDLP’s Mark Durkan said of him: ‘
He opposed Brian Faulkner’s support for the Sunningdale Agreement and instead called for
integration with Britain
POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN NORTHERN IRELAND, 1949–1993 357
