Sorcha Eastwood | |
---|---|
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Lagan Valley | |
Assumed office 5 May 2022 | |
Preceded by | Trevor Lunn |
Member of Lisburn &Castlereagh Council | |
In office 7 May 2019 –5 May 2022 | |
Preceded by | Geraldine Rice |
Succeeded by | Fiona Cole |
Constituency | Castlereagh South |
Personal details | |
Born | Sorcha-Lucy Eastwood October 1985 (age 38) |
Political party | Alliance |
Spouse | Dale Shirlow (m. 2017) |
Website | Assembly profile |
Sorcha-Lucy Eastwood (born October 1985) is an Alliance Party politician who was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly from Lagan Valley in the 2022 Assembly election. [2]
Sorcha Eastwood ran in the 2017 Northern Ireland Assembly election as an Alliance Party candidate in Belfast West. She received 747 first preference votes and was eliminated on the first count. [3]
She was an Alliance candidate again later that year, this time for the 2017 general election, running in Belfast West. She came 5th, with 731 votes, roughly maintaining Alliance's percentage share of the vote from the previous general election. [4]
She was elected in May 2019 as a councillor on Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council, representing the district electoral area of Castlereagh South. In that election, she topped the poll with 1,629 first preference votes and was elected on the first count. [5]
Later that year, she was the Alliance Party candidate for Lagan Valley in the 2019 UK general election, polling 28.8% of the vote (an increase of 17.7%), coming second behind the DUP incumbent Jeffrey Donaldson, while reducing his majority from 19,229 to 6,499. [6]
In 2020, Eastwood was awarded compensation after suing a former DUP councillor for accusing her of being an "IRA mouthpiece". [7]
Sorcha Eastwood, alongside David Honeyford, was an Alliance candidate for the 2022 Assembly election in Lagan Valley. She polled 8,211 first preference votes and was elected on the fourth count. [8] She took the seat formerly held by Alliance Party turned Independent MLA Trevor Lunn, who did not run for re-election. [9]
She appeared on BBC Question Time for the first time on 19 October 2023 in Lisburn. [10]
Eastwood has experienced homelessness. [11] On 8 June 2017, Eastwood married Dale Shirlow in Lisburn. With her wedding on the same day as the 2017 UK general election, Eastwood cast an election ballot in her wedding dress. [12] In 2023, she publicly criticised Belfast City Hospital where her husband is being treated for a rare blood cancer. [13]
Lagan Valley is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) until his resignation in March 2024. The constituency has always returned unionist MPs, but is considered competitive between the DUP and the Alliance Party for the forthcoming 2024 election.
Seamus Anthony Close OBE was a Northern Irish politician who was deputy leader of the Alliance Party from 1998 to 2001, and a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Lagan Valley from 1998 to 2007.
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Local elections were held in Northern Ireland on 18 May 2023. The elections were delayed by two weeks to avoid overlapping with the coronation of King Charles III. Following the elections, Sinn Féin became the largest party in local government for the first time. It also marked the first time that nationalist parties had garnered a greater share of the vote than unionist parties, however, despite this, there were more unionist councillors elected than nationalists.
Lisburn South is one of the seven district electoral areas (DEA) in Lisburn and Castlereagh, Northern Ireland. The district elects six members to Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council and contains the wards of Ballymacash, Ballymacoss, Knockmore, Lagan Valley, Lisnagarvey and Old Warren. Lisburn South forms part of the Lagan Valley constituencies for the Northern Ireland Assembly and UK Parliament.
The next United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland is scheduled to be held no later than 28 January 2025, with all 18 Northern Irish seats in the House of Commons to be contested. The general election will occur after the recently completed constituency boundaries review.