Edgar Graham

Some had been targeted by republicans because of their involvement in Unionist politics. Many knew Robert Bradford and Edgar Graham both murdered for defending the Union. Despite this they were prepared to share power with Sinn Féin. This displayed a magnanimity, and generosity of spirit which unfortunately has not yet been reciprocated by republicans. When we ‘jumped first’ and established the devolved Executive last November, the IRA just sat on its guns and did nothing with the result that the British Government had to suspend the Executive.

Journalist Ed Moloney, in his book, A Secret History of the IRA (2003), contends that Graham's killing was ordered by a restive IRA unit, the Belfast Brigade and Ivor Bell, as part of a campaign that was a direct challenge to Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams' call for a more "controlled and disciplined" campaign twinned with a growing parliamentary strategy. Moloney argues that Belfast area attacks by the IRA in late 1983, because of their backlash in the middle classes of both communities, in fact strengthened Adams and Sinn Féin's political path.

The resultant Assembly by-election on 1 March 1984 was won unopposed by then Ulster Unionist Party Chief Executive Frank Millar Jr.

Edgar Samuel David Graham, MPA, BL (1954 – 7 December 1983), was an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician and academic from Northern Ireland. He was regarded as a rising star of both legal studies and Unionism, and a possible future leader of the UUP, until he was killed on 7 December 1983 by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

In mid-morning on 7 December 1983, while chatting to UUP party and Queen's colleague Dermot Nesbitt at the University Square side of the main campus library, he was shot in the head a number of times by an IRA gunman and died almost instantly. He was 29 years old. Two persons were later convicted of withholding evidence from the police, but no one was ever convicted for his murder.

IN MEMORY OF EDGAR SAMUEL David Graham ASSEMBLY MEMBER FOR BELFAST SOUTH 1982–1983. SHOT BY TERRORISTS ON 7 DECEMBER 1983. "KEEP ALIVE THE LIGHT OF JUSTICE".

Despite Graham's murder, violence in Northern Ireland actually continued in a pattern of decline in 1983, with 77 deaths, down from 97 the previous year. The British Army suffered only five deaths in 1983, its lowest number since 1971, while combined security services suffered 33 deaths (a drop from 40 the year before), and civilian deaths were recorded as 44, the lowest number since 1970.

Graham joined the Ballymena branch of the Ulster Unionist Party at the age of 14. He later became Chairman of the Ulster Young Unionist Council, in which capacity he revived that part of the Party, and was seen as representing a new enlightened brand of Unionism. He subsequently became active in the senior party. In 1982 he addressed the Conservative Party Conference on the subject of Northern Ireland and was singled out as a leader of the future. This led to international invitations such as to Harvard Summer School for leading young lawyers. He was critical of both the British government's perceived indecisiveness and (more quietly) the UUP leadership under James Molyneaux.

Graham was elected a member of the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly for South Belfast.

Graham graduated from the Queen's University of Belfast in 1976. He began working on a Doctorate for the University of Oxford (at Trinity College), and was called to the Bar of Northern Ireland. In 1979 he became a member of the Queen's University Belfast law faculty, lecturing in public law, and was a law faculty colleague of David Trimble.