Newry and Armagh

After advancing to take the seat in 2005, Sinn Féin’s strong hold was confirmed two years later with a similar performance (20,879 first preferences). Davy Hyland, an anti-PSNI republican, gained 2,188 votes in 2007 and 808 of these still put Sinn Féin as their second choice. Support for policing therefore did not seriously dent Conor Murphy’s party in one of its major heartlands.

Dominic Bradley, on his second parliamentary outing, has some distance to cover. The fluent Irish speaker and teacher wants to be a “strong voice” for the constituency at Westminster, a prospect which is unlikely to sway republicans in his favour. His best bet is to recover some of Seamus Mallon’s support base, which stood at 20,784 in 2001. The murder of Paul Quinn may take away some support from Sinn Féin and Bradley has backed his family’s calls for justice.

Unionism is more fragmented. Paul Berry left the DUP amid scandal but was able to poll 2,317 votes as an independent in 2007. This cut his former party’s tally down to 6,418, giving a small surprise victory to Danny Kennedy, who had the edge with 6,517 votes. Kennedy is now the New Force’s Westminster candidate.

A joint unionist ticket – potentially with over 16,000 supporters – could comfortably take second place or scrape through to win if nationalism were more divided. However, Murphy’s seat does not appear at risk and his ministerial post has further raised his profile. High turnouts, though, mean that this will be an energetic contest to watch.