February 1969 marked the birth of Jennifer Aniston, famous for her role as Rachel in Friends. In Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister, Terence O’Neill was taking action within parliament to establish who his friends were within Unionism.
On the 3rd of February 1969, O’Neill announced the dissolution of the Stormont Parliament and a surprise election on the 24th of February. It’s believed that this was because of the turmoil inside the UUP after twelve dissident MPs signed a motion of no confidence against O'Neill, and Brian Faulkner resigned from the Government following its appointment of the Cameron Commission. Many thought that this was a huge political gamble by O’Neill, however, he felt that this would help strengthen the hand of those in favour of reform.
On the 6th of February, the New Ulster Movement (NUM) was formed. They aimed to promote moderate and non-sectarian policies and to help candidates who supported O’Neill in the upcoming election. The organisation was established under the Chairmanship of Brian Walker and would grow to have a membership of around 8,000 people.
In the build-up to the election, the BBC programme ‘Panorama’ was aired with all of the main political candidates in attendance. This was broadcast across the UK and was seen as one of the early instances where the wider population of Britain got a feel for what was going on in Northern Ireland at the time.
The election took place as planned on the 24th of February. This was the first (and only) election since the 1929 general election to see changes to the constituencies. The Queen's University of Belfast seat was abolished and four new constituencies were created in the suburbs of Belfast to compensate for population growth there. The main talking point was the fragmentation of the Unionist Party, where it was split into 2 distinct groups; ‘Official Unionists’ and ‘Unofficial Unionists’. Of the 36 unionist candidates returned in the election 23 were in support of the policies of O'Neill, while 13 were against or undecided. O’Neill also had 3 additional Independent Unionists who were supportive of him.
Although O'Neill was re-elected as leader of the Unionist Parliamentary Party and was confirmed as Northern Ireland Prime Minister, with pro-O'Neill candidates having won a bulk of the seats in the general election, O'Neill lost an overall majority among UUP MPs to pass his reforms through Parliament.
From O'Neill's point of view, the 1969 general election was inconclusive. He was humiliated by his near-defeat in his own constituency of Bannside by Ian Paisley, and would later resign.
The results of this election would lead to further trouble in Northern Ireland, in opposition to the result.