September 2007 saw the first Green Party affiliated student society being set up at Queens University, Belfast. Co-chairs Adam McGibbon and Marcus MacCormaic registered the QUB Greens securing 134 new members on Fresher’s Day, considerably more than any other political society at Queens that year.

In early 2008 Cllr Corry retired from Down District Council and Cadogan Enright, who had worked as the Party’s election agent in two elections was co-opted in his place.

Later that same year Cllr Corry’s daughter Helen stood in the Dromore area of Banbridge in a snap by-election.

Active groups in North Down, South Down, South & East Belfast and Antrim meet every month. While the Party’s Executive meets monthly. The Party has two chairpersons, Dr. John Barry and Kelly Andrews.

Then in 2005 the Green Party made a major electoral break through when it returned three councillors. First to be elected was Billy Corry, who held on to Raymond Blaney seat in Downpatrick, followed by Brian Wilson in Bangor and Ciaran Mussen in Hilltown. Green Party supporter from around the world raised their glasses. There were also strong performances from co-leaders John Barry in Holywood and Kelly Andrews in Bangor who managed to outpoll long-term councilors and was 50 votes short of the quota. Political commentators predicted that if the Greens could capitalise on this success in North Down there was a real opportunity to take a seat in the next Assembly elections. A combination of strong candidates and a more strategically minded election team the Green Party increased in confidence and withing two years the Assembly seat predictions came true.

However before, in 2005 at a conference in Hilltown, Co. Down the Hilltown Accord the Green Party in Northern Ireland enter into new cooperative arrangements with the Irish Greens as well as the Greens in Scotland, England and Wales.

The electoral successes of both the Irish and Scottish Greens at this time had a motivating influence on the Northern Ireland Greens, who continued to stand at the turn of the century. Also a changing political climate in Northern Ireland also gave hope for Green electoral success.

In May 2003 the Greens in Northern Ireland elected a new leader, Dr. John Barry. Under his leadership the Northern Ireland Green Party hosted a press conference with, for the first second time, elected representatives from all the Green parties in these islands: Comhaontas Glas, the Green Party in Scotland, and the Green Party in England and Wales.

This combined Green Voice called on the British and Irish Governments to: Change the electoral system to encourage parties to modify their sectarian posturing and also encourage rather than maginalise progressive parties; Change the formation of executive from d’Hondt system to weighted majority voting system for cabinet formation; Remove the requirement for MLAs to register as ‘Nationalist’, ‘Unionist’ or ‘other’; Create institutional support to help capture the contribution and energies of women to building the peace, through increasing female representation and participation in politics. (Support for, ‘Women into Politics’ programme, Queens University’s ‘Centre for the Advancement of Women in Politics’, the ‘Training for Women Network’. ‘Women’s Environment Network’)

2003 also saw an independent councilor in Downpatrick, Raymond Blaney join the Greens. Also in that year the Scottish Greens secured seven seats in the Scottish Parliament.

2003 also saw a new political energy descend upon Northern Ireland when efforts began to devolve power to a Northern Ireland Assembly. With extensive support from the British and Irish governments and America, political parties stood candidates for the Stormont based Assembly. The Green Party stood Peter Emerson, John Wright, Andrew Frew, John Barry and Philip Orr. The following year, in 2004 the Greens stood co-chair Lindsey Whitcroft in the European elections.

In 1990 the Green Party in Northern Ireland was re-launched in Belfast by Dr. Peter Doran and Sara Parkin, aimed at steering the Party towards a new era of professionalism. Among its objectives was to develop a Party of activists prepared to reach out beyond the environmentalist constituency, to anticipate the need for a progressive and inclusive third force in regional politics, create a political home for nationalist, unionist and non-aligned after political agreement, to align the Northern Ireland Greens with the pragmatic leaderships in European Green Parties, to abandon the failed analysis of Northern Ireland politics as a sectarian/racist issue and embrace a more sophisticated analysis focusing more on the historic nation-building aspirations of London and Dublin, and post-colonial context and to adopt a gender balance in the leadership (Co-Chairs, male and female).

That same year Dr. Doran took up the Green Party candidacy in the Upper Bann constituency, polling 576 votes in a Westminster election. Dr. Doran continues to campaign for the Green Party and is one of the key architects of the modern day Green Party which operates in Northern Ireland today.

In June 1992 the Northern Ireland Green Party hosted a mini Earth Summit in Belfast in an effort to highlight the United Nations’ Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero. The event was a cross-party gathering held with the support of six development agencies, including OXFAM and Trocaire.

In November 1993 the Green Party hosted a cross-party conference on power-sharing in Dungannon, in which participants included Sinn Féin’s Francie Molloy, the Ulster Unionist’s William Thompson, Pat Daly from the SDL, Gerry Cullen from the Democratic Left and Eric Bullick from Alliance.

Throughout the mid to late 1990s the Greens in Northern Ireland continued to participate in local, general and European elections. Although the Greens joined forces with the Democratic Left and Labour to support June Campion as a Peace Coalition candidate. In the Republic, however, there was major electoral success when both Patricia McKenna and Nuala Ahern were elected MEPs.

In January 1995 the Northern Ireland Green Party formed part of the Comhaontas Glas team for the Dublin Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. A year later the Green Parties on both sides of the border came together to host a press conference calling for the forthcoming Forum elections to be held under a top-up form of PR-STV (Proportional representation – single transferable vote). However the governments choose a ‘top-down’ form of PR, with an extra two seats to the top ten parties. Standing candidates in every Northern Irish constituency, the Green Party secured its best performance in North Down. This constituency was intertwined in Green Party history years later when it returned the first ever Green Party Assembly Member in 2007.

In 1999 the Scottish Green leader Robin Harper became an elected MEMBER OF THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT in its first parliamentary elections. That same year the English Greens repeated the Irish Greens’ European election success taking two MEP seats (Jean Lambert and Caroline Lucas).

The Green Party in Northern Ireland originated in the early 1980s, partly as a result of a wider Green Movement which was sweeping across Western Europe and partly because of the massive anti-nuclear feeling which gripped Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland at that time. Interestingly, influences on the early Green Parties can also be traced back to the radical cultural and political questions that emerged during the late 1960s and leaders within the Student Movement of 1968 went on to become leaders of the Greens and remain active to this day.

Green Party politics, as we know it today can be traced back to New Zealand, where the Values Party was launched in the 1960s. By 1972 the UK Ecology Party was established following the publication of the Germinal Blueprint for Survival. By 1979 the West German Green Party, Die Grunen had gained 3.2 percent of the vote contesting the European elections. Two years later the first local Green councillor was elected in Cornwell.

The Northern Ireland electorate got its first taste of Green politics in 1981 when Peter Emerson, Avril McCandless and Malcolm Samuels stood as Ecology Party candidates gaining 233, 81 and 61 votes respectively. It is worth noting that Peter Emerson is still an active member of the Green Party in North Belfast to this day.

In the same year Green Politics was born in the Republic following at meeting in the Central Hotel organized by Christopher Fettes. It later changed its name to Comhaontas Glas (Green Alliance). At its first convention held in 1982 in Glencree in Co. Wicklow many from the Northern Ireland Ecology Party traveled south to lend support.

In 1983 the Northern Ireland Ecology Party was officially launched at a press conference in the Europa Hotel, Belfast. In attendance were the Irish Comhaontas Glas and Greens from across the UK. All three groups worked together and formed a combined policy on Northern Ireland. It was the first time that a political movement representing Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK came together to find common ground on the increasingly fraught situation in Northern Ireland.

The Green Party contested local, general and European elections throughout the 1980s, attracting growing membership. In 1983 a mile stone was achieved when in the Republic the Irish Green Party celebrated its first elected councillor in Killarney, Marcus Counihan.

It was also in 1985 that Ecology Parties throughout UK and Ireland changed their name to Green Party.

1989 proved to be a tipping point year. In June the Great Britain Greens won a massive 15% of the vote in the European elections when Malcolm Samuels took 6,569 votes. Meanwhile, in the Republic of Ireland general election, the Irish Greens gained their first member of Dáil ?ireann when Roger Garland T.D secured election.