Frank Millar Jr

Frank Millar is a Northern Irish journalist and former unionist politician.

The son of Frank Millar, also a unionist politician, he was known as "Frank Millar Jr" during his early political career. He joined the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), and remained a member when his father left the organisation to sit as an independent Unionist.

Millar was the Press Officer of the UUP during the early 1980s.[1] He stood unsuccessfully for 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly in South Antrim.[2] However, he was elected to that body in 1984 in an uncontested by-election in Belfast South caused by the IRA murder of Edgar Graham.[3]

In 1983, Millar became the General Secretary of the UUP.[1] At the 1987 UK general election, he stood in Belfast West, receiving 18.7% of the votes cast.[4] The same year, he worked with UUP MP Harold McCusker and the DUP's Peter Robinson to produce a report on power sharing, following a positive report on the topic by the Ulster Political Research Group. The Task Force Report gave serious consideration to the idea, and called for a strategic unionist rethink in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It was rejected by their respective leaders, Ian Paisley and James Molyneaux. Millar then resigned from his party post.[5]

Millar subsequently became a journalist and has long been the London Editor of the Irish Times. In 1998, he was named the Irish Print Journalist of the Year. In 2004, he wrote a biography of UUP leader David Trimble, entitled David Trimble: The Price of Peace.[6]

References

1. Graham S. Walker, A History of the Ulster Unionist Party: Protest, Pragmatism And Pessimism
2. South Antrim 1973-1982, Northern Ireland Elections
3. South Belfast 1973-1984, Northern Ireland Elections
4. UK Parliamentary Election results: 1983-97: Northern Irish Boroughs
5. Brendan O'Leary and John McGarry, The Northern Ireland Conflict: Consociational Engagements
6. "David Trimble by Frank Millar", Global-Investor Bookshop