This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Seamus Close" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(April 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Seamus Anthony CloseOBE (12 August 1947 – 7 May 2019)^[1] was a Northern Irish politician who was deputy leader of theAlliance Party from 1998 to 2001, and aMember of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) forLagan Valley from1998 to2007.^[2]

In August 1981, he was the Alliance candidate for the secondFermanagh and South Tyrone by-election. The following year under the redistribution and expansion of Northern Ireland's constituencies his local political base became part of the newLagan Valley constituency which he has contested in the Alliance interest in all elections since1983 apart from the1986 by-election called in protest against theAnglo-Irish Agreement when the local Alliance branch declined to contest the seat as they believed the by-election was a political stunt.

Close also held several positions in the Alliance, including serving as Chair between 1981 and 1982 and as Deputy Leader from 1991 until 2001. He was often a member of the key Alliance delegations in successive talks about the future of the province, culminating in theBelfast Agreement of 1998.

In the 1996 elections for theNorthern Ireland Forum, Close stood at the head of the Alliance's list forLagan Valley but the party failed to secure enough votes to win one of the local seats. Close was also included on the province-wide list, and as the most senior Alliance member to not be elected locally he won one of Alliance's two seats. In the1998 election for the newNorthern Ireland Assembly he topped the poll in Lagan Valley and gained a further personal triumph in the2001 general election when he had the highest vote share of any Alliance candidate.

In June 2001, he resigned as Deputy Leader of the party,^[3] citing differences with the leadership ofSeán Neeson. Close has remained a member of the Assembly and successfully held his seat in the2003 Assembly election.

In July 2005, Mr Close proposed that the Lisburn Council deny gay couples access to the council's designated wedding facility if they were seeking a civil partnership under theCivil Partnership Act 2004. The council adopted his recommendation, to the great annoyance of many liberal campaigners. This ran against Alliance policy, which had been strongly supportive of the introduction of civil partnership laws, and he was publicly criticised by other senior party members.^[2]

In November 2006, Close announced that he was retiring from politics^[2] In the2007 election he was succeeded as Alliance Party Lagan Valley Assembly representative by the then Mayor of Lisburn, CouncillorTrevor Lunn.^[4]

Close was succeeded asMayor of Lisburn by Harry Lewis.

• 1947 births
• 2019 deaths
• Alliance Party of Northern Ireland MLAs
• Politicians from Lisburn
• Members of Lisburn City Council
• Mayors of places in Northern Ireland
• Northern Ireland MPAs 1982–1986
• Members of the Northern Ireland Forum
• Northern Ireland MLAs 1998–2003
• Northern Ireland MLAs 2003–2007
• Officers of the Order of the British Empire
• People educated at St Malachy's College

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from May 2019
• Use Hiberno-English from April 2017
• All Wikipedia articles written in Hiberno-English
• Articles needing additional references from April 2008
• All articles needing additional references