[1] Active before the First World War, the Ulster Liberal Association sought to avoid a position on the question of Home Rule (the restoration of an Irish parliament in Dublin) which had seen Liberal Unionists split and join Conservatives in the Irish Unionist Alliance.
In 1908, the Association dismissed the former Independent Orangeman and Liberal candidate for Mid Armagh in the 1906 parliamentary election, R. Lindsay Crawford as editor of its paper, Ulster Guardian, because it could not allow its pages "to be used directly or indirectly in support of devolution or Home Rule".
[3] It nominated candidates in the 1929 UK general election,[4] including future Seanad Éireann member Denis Ireland and Unbought Tenants' Association MP George Henderson, before the party became inactive.
[5] Its last political contest was the 1985 local government election,[8] after which its last remnants joined the Labour '87 group.
There is also a small local party of the Liberal Democrats in Northern Ireland, who do not contest elections.