Charles McCullough (Northern Ireland politician)

McCullough was based on the Shankill Road.^[2] He was a member of the founding executive of Ulster Protestant Action, in 1956.^[3] He was elected to Belfast City Council for the group in 1958,^[4] topping the poll.^[5] He left the group before the next elections, in 1961, joining the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP).^[6]

Cullough secured re-election under his new party colours and, by 1965, he was the chair of its Improvement Committee. He resigned from this following a dispute over the naming of the Queen Elizabeth Bridge; he had instead hoped it would be named for Edward Carson, and believed that this name had been rejected due to party indiscipline.^[7]

In 1968, McCullough was elected to the Senate of Northern Ireland.^[8] He resigned from the UUP in September 1970,^[9] and became a founder member of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) the following year.^[10] The Senate ceased to meet in 1972,^[8] and, although McCullough remained a supporter of the DUP, he did not stand in any further elections. On 4 October 2014, he died at the age of 90.^[11]