Dermot Nesbitt (born 14 August 1947) is a former

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movem ...

(UUP)

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

from

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

who was a

Member of the Legislative Assembly A member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) is a representative elected by the voters of a constituency to a legislative assembly. Most often, the term refers to a subnational assembly such as that of a state, province, or territory of a country. S ...

(MLA) for South Down from 1998 to 2007. Nesbitt was educated at

Down High School Down High School is a controlled co-educational grammar school located in Downpatrick, County Down, Northern Ireland. The school has students from the ages of eleven to eighteen in the senior school — of which there are approximately 970 pup ...

and later studied

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

Queen's University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

and joined the

(UUP). He was the

election agent An election agent in elections in the United Kingdom, as well as some other similar political systems such as elections in India, is the person legally responsible for the conduct of a candidate's political campaign and to whom election material is ...

for

Brian Faulkner Arthur Brian Deane Faulkner, Baron Faulkner of Downpatrick, (18 February 1921 – 3 March 1977), was the sixth and last Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, from March 1971 until his resignation in March 1972. He was also the chief executive ...

from 1973–77, most of this period spent as a member of the

Unionist Party of Northern Ireland The Unionist Party of Northern Ireland was a political party founded by Brian Faulkner in September 1974. Formation The party emerged following splits in the Ulster Unionist Party in 1973 and 1974 over the British government's white paper ''Nor ...

. Nesbitt worked as a

lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...

at Queen's and by 1981 he had rejoined the UUP, being elected to

Down District Council Down District Council was a Local Council in County Down in Northern Ireland. It merged with Newry and Mourne District Council in April 2015 under local government reorganisation in Northern Ireland to become Newry, Mourne and Down District Cou ...

. He held this seat until 1989. Nesbitt was elected to the

Northern Ireland Forum The Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue was a body set up in 1996 as part of a process of negotiations that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The forum was elected, with five members being elected for each Westmin ...

for South Down in 1996, and held this seat on the

Northern Ireland Assembly sco-ulster, Norlin Airlan Assemblie , legislature = 7th Northern Ireland Assembly, Seventh Assembly , coa_pic = File:NI_Assembly.svg , coa_res = 250px , house_type = Unicameralism, Unicameral , hou ...

at the

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

and 2003 elections. Nesbitt was a junior minister in the

Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland The Executive Office is a devolved Northern Ireland government department in the Northern Ireland Executive with overall responsibility for the running of the Executive. The ministers with overall responsibility for the department are the Fir ...

from 1998 until 2002, when he took up the post of Minister of the Environment. He retired in 2007, and party colleague

John McCallister John McCallister (born 20 February 1972) is a Northern Irish Unionist politician. In 2007, he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly as an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) member for South Down. On 14 February 2013, McCallister announced tha ...

retained a UUP seat in the South Down constituency. At the

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

and 2005 general elections, Nesbitt stood unsuccessfully for the Westminster seat of South Down. He continued to work as a lecturer in finance at QUB until his early 70s. In mid-morning on 7 December 1983, while chatting to UUP party and Queen's colleague

Edgar Graham 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 ...

at the University Square side of the main campus library, Graham (aged 29) was shot in the head a number of times by an IRA gunman and died almost instantly. Two persons were later convicted of withholding evidence from the police, but no one was ever convicted for Graham's murder.PROTESTANT PARTY LEADER SLAIN IN ULSTER
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', 8 December 1983.
NORTHERN IRELAND, Terrorist Activities, reports of British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland's office, in answer to questions
16 April 1999. The government account reads:

"Mr. Edgar Graham: At approximately 10.50 am on 7 December 1983, at University Square, Belfast, Mr. Graham was shot dead. The murder was claimed by the Irish Republican Army. RUC investigations resulted in one person being convicted of making property available and withholding information and sentenced to 2 years imprisonment suspended for 3 years. Another person, convicted of withholding information, was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment suspended for 2 years. A number of other persons were arrested and interviewed in relation to this murder but released without charge."

Nesbitt lives in

Crossgar Crossgar () is a village and townland in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is about south of Belfast – between Saintfield and Downpatrick. Crossgar had a population 1,892 people in the 2011 UK Census. History Crossgar has had an interesti ...

where his family have lived for several generations. He has been involved in many community and church activities in the area.

References

Biographies: Dermot Nesbitt
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nesbitt, Dermot 1947 births Living people Members of the Northern Ireland Forum Ministers of the Northern Ireland Executive (since 1999) Members of Down District Council Ulster Unionist Party councillors Ulster Unionist Party MLAs Northern Ireland MLAs 1998–2003 Northern Ireland MLAs 2003–2007 Unionist Party of Northern Ireland politicians Academics of Queen's University Belfast Junior ministers of the Northern Ireland Assembly (since 1999)