W. F. McCoy

Who was W. F. McCoy?

William Frederick McCoy was an Ulster Unionist member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for South Tyrone who went on to become an early supporter of Ulster nationalism.

Born in Fivemiletown, County Tyrone, McCoy was educated at Clones High School and Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied law. After serving in the British Army during World War I McCoy became a barrister in 1920 and held a number of leading legal positions in Northern Ireland including Crown Prosecutor for County Fermanagh, Resident Magistrate for Belfast and Senior Crown Prosecutor for Belfast.

Initially elected to the Parliament in a by-election on 12 April 1945, McCoy held the seat for the Ulster Unionists until his retirement in 1965. Whilst at first his political viewpoints were fairly typical of Unionism at the time, McCoy began to doubt how far the Union was safeguarded by the existing status of Northern Ireland as it was entirely determined by the United Kingdom, whom, he felt, could as easily vote it out of existence as retain it. As a result McCoy called for Northern Ireland to be governed as a Dominion of Britain along the lines of Australia and Canada, with the monarch retained as Head of State, but with the Northern Ireland Parliament otherwise free to govern.