Career
Boal had a legal career before he entered politics in 1960. He was very critical of the leadership under Captain Terence O"Neill, then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Boal opposed the manner, if not the substance, of O"Neill"s attempts at improving relations with both the Irish government and the Roman Catholic/Irish nationalist minority in Northern Ireland, along with many backbenchers.
Discontented with James Chichester-Clark and Brian Faulkner who came to government after O"Neill"s 1969 fall from power, Boal resigned from the UUP in 1971 and joined Ian Paisley in establishing the Democratic Unionist Party (Democratic Unionist Party) in order to provide dissident unionist opinion with a viable political alternative.
He worked as the first Chairman and one of the first public representatives of the Democratic Unionist Party and continued to sit in Stormont during the years of 1971-1972. He later resumed his practice as a barrister.
