Thankfully – I’ve managed to come into possession of Tallies for the South Antrim constituency in this year’s assembly election.  Given that tallies of any kind are as rare as the proverbial hen’s teeth this is quite a catch.

A few notes – these strictly aren’t tallies; they are samples. Only about one-fifth of the votes in each box were sampled. So accordingly there is a margin of error involved, which is why I’m rounding most percentages to the nearest five.

Also, as you can see the Ward boundaries around Lough Neagh extend into the lake. Whether fish vote – and which side of the cultural and political divide they cleave to – is uncertain, but that is the way they are defined.

Anyway for the moment I’m simply going to do a quick Anatomy of the Vote – I will be adding further sections later.

ANATOMY OF THE VOTE

South Antrim is composed of the western part of the Antrim and Newtownabbey District as well as the Glenavy ward from Lisburn District.

To make analysis somewhat easier I’ve divided the constituency into five areas – the South (Glenavy and the Airport Electoral area except the Mallusk and Templepatrick wards), the Northwest (Dunsilly Electoral Area except the Parkgate Ward), Ballyclare (Ballyclare Electoral Area plus the Templepatrick and Parkgate wards), Antrim (the Antrim Electoral area) and Newtownabbey (the part of Newtownabbey in South Antrim plus Mallusk ward whose estates are on the outskirts of Newtownabbey.

TABLE 1 : REGIONAL SUPPORT

PARTY	STH	N-.W	B’CLARE	ANTRIM	NEWT’ABBEY	TOTAL
UUP	10%	9%	26%	20%	16%	19%
DUP	18%	19%	36%	26%	33%	26%
TUV	5%	8%	14%	10%	9%	10%
UNIONIST	32%	36%	76%	55%	58%	54%
SF	38%	37%	2%	15%	15%	20%
SDLP	10%	11%	2%	10%	5%	7%
AON	2%	5%	0%	1%	1%	1%
NATIONALIST	50%	53%	4%	26%	21%	28%
ALL	14%	10%	17%	17%	19%	16%
PBP	1%	0%	0%	1%	1%
GP	2%	0%	1%	1%	1%	1%
IND	0%	0%	1%	1%	0%	1%
OTHER	17%	11%	19%	19%	22%	20%

The Ballyclare area is staunchly Unionist with over three-quarters of the voters choosing Unionist parties with Alliance taking the bulk of the remainder. Unionists also take a majority of the vote in Antrim and Newtownabbey.

Nationalists by contrast take a majority of the vote in the south and North-West.

Much of the Nationalist vote is clustered along the banks of Lough Neagh – in the seven wards that border the lough, Nationalist parties took 54% of the vote compared to 30% for Unionists.

The map below shows the poll-topping candidate in each ward.

I’ll now have a closer look at each of the regions…

NORTH-WEST

The North-West consists of the town of Randalstown and the village of Toomebridge alongside Lough Neagh and the River Bann.

Toomebridge returned an overwhelmingly nationalist vote, over 85% in both boxes in the village with Sinn Féin taking 70%. The town of Randalstown (which is divided by the Maine River) showed Unionists taking a majority of the vote in the west side of town (with the DUP taking a third of the vote and the TUV outpolling the UUP) whereas by contrast in the east of the town Nationalists took two-thirds of the vote.

In the rural areas west of the town,  Unionists took nearly 80% at Groggan Nationalist school to the North while further south Nationalists took two-thirds of the vote in Creggan National School to the south – Creggan saw the best result for Aontu with 14% of the vote.

The map above shows the town of Randalstown and how it is divided between three different wards (denoted by thin blue lines) – Randalstown, Creggan (to the south-west and Drumanaway (to the north-west).

The other polling station in this area is Creavery National School about three miles to the east of Randalstown where Unionists took two-thirds of the vote.

THE SOUTH

The South of the area is overwhelmingly rural with the town of Crumlin and the village of Glenavy being the main population centers.  In both settlements, nationalists took roughly two-thirds of the vote (Sinn Féin roughly 55% in Glenavy and 50% in Crumlin Primary School).

Unionists polled well in the two rural polling stations east of Glenavy taking roughly half the vote in both Dundrod and Ballinderry compared to 25% for Nationalist parties.

ANTRIM TOWN

In Antrim Town, Nationalists were in the majority in the small Farranshane box on the eastern edge of town, and took roughly one-third of the vote through the centre of the town and its western side. Sinn Féin outpolled the SDLP three to one in Farranshane, but throughout the rest of the town the SDLP took around 40% of the Nationalist vote. The Alliance Party also polled best in the West of the town with John Blair topping the poll in the Balloo and Massereene Wards.

The TUV took 20% in the area bounded by the Fountain Hill and Steeple Roads and in Ballycraigy in the south-east of the town.

BALLYCLARE

The Ballyclare area consists of the small town of Ballyclare and the villages of Ballynure, Ballyrobert, Parkgate, Templepatrick and Doagh. The area is overwhelmingly Unionist with the Nationalist parties not taking over 10% in any polling station.

The UUP appear to have polled best in the North of Ballyclare town with roughly a third of the vote – elsewhere the DUP was the lead Unionist party.

The DUP seem to have had a voting split strategy with Trevor Clarke taking the north of Ballyclare and areas to the North and West, where as Pam Cameron took the south of the town and areas to the south and east.

Alliance polled best in rural parts of the area, taking 20-25% in Templepatrick, Parkgate and Ballynure wards – John Blair also topped the poll in Templepatrick.

NEWTOWNABBEY

Finally the Newtownabbey area consists of several wards from the North-West of Newtownabbey – I’ve also included Mallusk ward which is technically a rural ward, but has a large business park on its eastern boundary with mainly nationalist estates to the south and mainly unionist estates to the west.

The area of Newtownabbey itself that lies within South Antrim, is largely Unionist and the DUP dominate the Unionist vote, taking over half the Unionist vote in all Polling Stations. The TUV polled best in the Carnmoney and Mossley area.