Desmond Boal

Who is Desmond Boal?

Desmond Boal is a former Unionist politician and barrister from Northern Ireland.

Boal had a legal career before he entered politics in 1960. He was the Unionist member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for the Shankill constituency between 1960 and 1972. He was very critical of the leadership under Captain Terence O'Neill, then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Boal opposed the manner, if not the substance, of O'Neill's attempts at improving relations with both the Irish government and the Roman Catholic nationalist minority in Northern Ireland, along with many backbenchers.

Discontented with James Chichester-Clark and Brian Faulkner who came to Government after O'Neill's 1969 fall from power, Boal resigned from the Unionist Party in 1971 and joined Ian Paisley, in establishing the Democratic Unionist Party in order to provide dissident Unionist opinion with a viable political alternative. He worked as the first Chairman and one of the first public representatives of the DUP and continued to sit in Stormont during the years of 1971-1972. He later resumed his practice as a barrister.