Sinn Féin win seats over SDLP

Sinn Féin scored a major victory in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections last night by taking three seats in the Newry and Armagh constituency.

The republican party swept ahead of their SDLP rivals in the area in another indication of the shift in power.

Conor Murphy was returned to Stormont on the first count and took party colleagues Davy Hyland and Patricia O’Rawe with him.

Mr Murphy declared: “The result we will be celebrating tonight is a clear and overwhelming endorsement of the strategy of Sinn Féin in support of the peace process and our desire to implement the Good Friday Agreement.”

Paul Berry, the Democratic Unionist candidate, had earlier topped the Newry and Armagh poll.

Danny Kennedy of David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists and Dominic Bradley of the SDLP were also elected.