Ruth Patterson (politician)
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Ruth Patterson (politician)
Ruth Patterson (born October 1955) is a former Northern Irish unionist politician who was deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast between 2006 and 2007, then 2011 to 2012. Additionally, she served as High Sheriff of Belfast from 2004 to 2005. Patterson was a Belfast City councillor from 2001 to 2019, initially for the Balmoral DEA, later Botanic. Background Originally from Dungannon, Patterson moved to Belfast in 1974 to train as a nurse in the Royal Victoria Hospital. She later joined the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) during The Troubles, serving for three years. Political career Patterson joined the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in 1998, following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. Commenting on the signatories of the Agreement in 1999, she said: “May god forgive them, for I won’t … and neither will the children of Ulster.” Belfast City Council Patterson was the campaign manager for successful DUP candidates, Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds, at the 2001 general ele ...
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Lord Mayor Of Belfast
The Lord Mayor of Belfast is the leader and chairperson of Belfast City Council, elected annually from and by the city's 60 councillors. The Lord Mayor also serves as the representative of the city of Belfast, welcoming guests from across the United Kingdom and Ireland. The current Lord Mayor is Tracy Kelly of the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland who has been in the position of Lord Mayor since 2 June 2025. The Deputy Lord Mayor is Paul Doherty of the Social Democratic and Labour Party History The position that is now the Lord Mayor originated in 1613 in the town's Royal Charter as the Sovereign of Belfast. In 1842, this position was restyled the Mayor of Belfast. In 1892, four years after Belfast was granted city status, the position was given Lord Mayor status, making it one of only three cities on the island of Ireland having a Lord Mayor, the other two being Cork and Dublin. In 1929, it became one of only six cities in the United Kingdom to have a Lord M ...
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Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast
The Royal Victoria Hospital commonly known as "the Royal", the "RVH" or "the Royal Belfast", is a hospital in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is managed by the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. The hospital has a Regional Virus Centre, which is one of the four laboratories in the United Kingdom on the World Health Organization (WHO) list of laboratories able to perform Polymerase chain reaction, PCR for rapid diagnosis of 2009 flu pandemic in the United Kingdom, influenza A (H1N1) virus infection in humans. History Early history The Royal Victoria Hospital has its origins in a number of successive institutions, beginning in 1797 with The Belfast Fever Hospital and General Dispensary, located in Factory Row (although the dispensary originally opened in 1792). This moved to West Street in 1799, and then to Frederick Street in 1817. In 1847 the hospital separated from the General Dispensary and became the Belfast General Hospital. In 1875 it gained the royal charter, becoming ...
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2011 Northern Ireland Assembly Election
The 2011 Northern Ireland Assembly election took place on Thursday, 5 May, following the dissolution of the Northern Ireland Assembly at midnight on 24 March 2011. It was the fourth election to take place since the devolved assembly was established in 1998. It was held on the same day as elections for Northern Ireland's 26 Local government in Northern Ireland, local councils, the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, Scottish Parliament and 2011 National Assembly for Wales election, Welsh Assembly elections, a number of local elections in England and the 2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum. As in the past, the 2011 election to the Assembly was conducted using the single transferable vote (STV) system of proportional representation. The 108 seats were contested in 18 constituencies by Candidates nominated to run for the 2011 election of the Northern Ireland Assembly, 218 candidates, including 15 independents and the nominees of ...
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Patrick McCarthy (politician)
Patrick McCarthy MBE is an Irish Nationalist former politician, in Northern Ireland, who was Lord Mayor of Belfast from 2006 to 2007. As a member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), he was a Belfast City Councillor for the Laganbank DEA from 2001 to 2014. Background Born and raised in the Markets area of Belfast, McCarthy was interned without trial in 1971 on suspicion of being a member of the Official IRA, before being released in 1972. He was first elected to Belfast City Council, at the 2001 local elections, as an SDLP representative for the Laganbank District. Following re-election in 2005, he was chosen as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 2006. McCarthy, the city's fourth nationalist mayor, was endorsed by all parties except Sinn Féin. He was re-elected to the Council in 2011. Following nominations from church and community groups across the sectarian divide McCarthy was appointed MBE for Political and Community Cohesion in the 2016 New Year Honours. In ...
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Social Democratic And Labour Party
The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP; ) is a social democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland Assembly ( MLAs) and two members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The SDLP party platform advocates Irish reunification and, pending the unity of all the people of Ireland and while the northern jurisdiction remains part of the United Kingdom, further devolution of powers. It is a sister party of the UK Labour Party, which maintains an electoral pact with the SDLP not to stand candidates in Northern Ireland but to support SDLP candidates instead. MPs from the SDLP sit with Labour MPs on the government benches when Labour is in power, but do not take the Labour whip, though they informally did so historically. During the Troubles, the SDLP was the most popular Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland, but since the Provisional IRA ceasefire in ...
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South Belfast (Assembly Constituency)
Belfast South is a constituency in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The seat was first used for a Northern Ireland-only election for the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973. It usually shares boundaries with the Belfast South UK Parliament constituency, however the boundaries of the two constituencies were slightly different from 1983 to 1986 and 2010–2011 as the Assembly boundaries had not caught up with Parliamentary boundary changes and from 1996 to 1997 when members of the Northern Ireland Forum had been elected from the newly drawn Parliamentary constituencies but the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected in 1992 under the 1983–95 constituency boundaries, was still in session. Members were then elected from the constituency to the 1975 Constitutional Convention, the 1982 Assembly, the 1996 Forum and then to the current Assembly from 1998. The constituency is formed from the Belfast City Council districts of Balmoral and Botanic as well as one ward from Titanic ...
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Mark Robinson (Northern Ireland Politician)
Mark Simon Peter Robinson (born 12 May 1959) is a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician, who was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Belfast South from 1998 to 2007. He served two terms, from the inception of the Assembly in 1998 until 2007. Political career In 1998 he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly from Belfast South.Nicholas Whyte and Conal KellySouth Belfast Northern Ireland Elections, ARK (Northern Ireland Social and Political Archive), 28 December 2019, retrieved 13 September 2020. He increased his vote in the 2003 election and was returned in second place. He ran for re-election in 2007 but was defeated by Jimmy Spratt. He also served two terms on Castlereagh Borough Council, being elected in 2001. He has come under fire in the media for running up one of the highest travel expenses of any of the 108 MLAs, despite representing a constituency neighbouring that which Parliament Buildings is in. A party source said that he was l ...
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2003 Northern Ireland Assembly Election
The 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly election was held on Wednesday, 26 November 2003, after being suspended for just over a year. It was the second election to take place since the devolved assembly was established in 1998. Each of Northern Ireland's eighteen British House of Commons, Westminster Parliamentary constituencies elected six members by single transferable vote, giving a total of 108 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs). The election was contested by 18 parties and many independent candidates. Background The election was originally planned for May 2003, but was delayed by Paul Murphy, Baron Murphy of Torfaen, Paul Murphy, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Several sitting MLAs stood under a different label to the one they had used in the 1998 Northern Ireland Assembly election, 1998 election. Some had failed to be selected by their parties to stand and so stood as independents, whilst others had changed parties during the course of the assembly. Most of ...
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2001 Northern Ireland Local Elections
Elections for Local government in Northern Ireland, local government were held in Northern Ireland on 7 June 2001, contesting 582 seats in all, along with the 2001 United Kingdom general election, 2001 general election across the entire United Kingdom. Results Overall By council Where a party is indicated with an asterisk (*) it means the councillor was listed as an independent on the ballot. Councils Antrim Ards Armagh Ballymena Ballymoney Banbridge Belfast Carrickfergus Castlereagh Coleraine Cookstown Craigavon Derry Down Dungannon and South Tyrone Fermanagh Larne Limavady Lisburn Magherafelt Moyle Newry and Mourne Newtownabbey North Down Omagh Strabane References

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2001 United Kingdom General Election
The 2001 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 7 June 2001, four years after the previous election on 1 May 1997, to elect 659 members to the House of Commons. The governing Labour Party led by Prime Minister Tony Blair was re-elected to serve a second term in government with another landslide victory with a 166-seat majority, returning 412 members of Parliament versus 418 from the previous election, a net loss of six seats, although with a significantly lower turnout than before—59.4%, compared to 71.6% at the previous election. The number of votes Labour received fell by nearly three million. Blair went on to become the only Labour prime minister to serve two consecutive full terms in office. As Labour retained almost all of their seats won in the 1997 landslide victory, the media dubbed the 2001 election "the quiet landslide". There was little change outside Northern Ireland, with 620 out of the 641 seats in Great Britain electing candidates from the sam ...
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Nigel Dodds
Nigel Alexander Dodds, Baron Dodds of Duncairn, (born 20 August 1958), is a Northern Irish unionist politician and barrister serving as Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in the House of Lords since 2021. He previously served as deputy leader of the DUP from 2008 to 2021 and leader of the DUP in the House of Commons from 2010 to 2019. Born in Derry and raised in County Fermanagh, Dodds originally practised as a barrister. He has been Lord Mayor of Belfast twice, and served as General Secretary of the DUP from 1993 to 2008. Dodds served as a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly from 1998 to 2010. He served in three ministerial portfolios in the Northern Ireland Executive, lastly as Minister of Finance and Personnel from 2008 to 2009, a position he assumed shortly after he became Deputy Leader. He became Member of Parliament for the Belfast North constituency at the 2001 UK general election and served in that role until he was defeated by John Finucane of Sin ...
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Peter Robinson (Northern Ireland Politician)
Peter David Robinson (born 29 December 1948) is a retired Northern Irish politician who served as First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2008 until 2016 and Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 2008 until 2015. Until his retirement in 2016, Robinson was involved in Northern Irish politics for over 40 years, being a founding member of the DUP along with Ian Paisley. Robinson served in the role of General Secretary of the DUP from 1975, a position which he held until 1979 and which afforded him the opportunity to exert extraordinary influence within the fledgeling party. In 1977, Robinson was elected as a councillor for the Castlereagh Borough Council in Dundonald, and in 1979, he became one of the youngest Members of Parliament (MP) when he was narrowly elected for Belfast East. He held this seat for 31 years until his defeat by Naomi Long in 2010, making him the longest-serving Belfast MP since the 1800 Act of Union. In 1980, Robinson was elected as the depu ...
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