Nuala McAllister is a

Northern Irish Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...

politician who is an Alliance Party

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). She was elected as an MLA in the

2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election The 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election was held on 5 May 2022. It elected 90 members to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It was the seventh assembly election since the establishment of the assembly in 1998. The election was held three months ...

for Belfast North.

Political career

Councillor (2014–2022)

McAllister was elected as an Alliance Party councillor for the

Castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

DEA in North Belfast on

Belfast City Council Belfast City Council ( ga, Comhairle Cathrach Bhéal Feirste) is the local authority with responsibility for part of the city of Belfast, the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. The Council serves an estimated population of (), the l ...

at the 2014 local elections, taking 9.64% of the first preference votes. She was re-elected at the 2019 local elections, topping the poll with 1,787 first preference votes and being elected at the first count - narrowly edging out future Sinn Féin MP

John Finucane John Finucane (born 1980) is an Irish lawyer, footballer, and Sinn Féin politician. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Belfast North constituency of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom since the 2019 general election. ...

, who was also elected on the first count.

Lord Mayor of Belfast and rising profile (2017–2022)

She was the

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 Un ...

in 2017–2018. She announced the theme of her Mayorship as 'Global Belfast'. She described her aim as promoting "Belfast as an open, inclusive and welcoming place to live and do business". McAllister garnered controversy for being outspoken in support of liberalising Northern Ireland's abortion laws, as well as due to her campaigning for

marriage equality Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same Legal sex and gender, sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being ...

during her term as Lord Mayor. Due to her outspoken beliefs, Belfast City Council member Jim Rodgers called McAllister "one of the worst lord mayors we have ever had" for "failing to remain impartial". Alliance responded to criticism of McAllister by saying that she was "a breath of fresh air in the role and an excellent role model for young women and working mums everywhere". She also ran in both the

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and

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Northern Ireland Assembly elections as the Alliance candidate for Belfast North, where she was the runner up both times - 7th (when the constituency had 6 seats) and 6th (when the constituency moved to 5 seats) - missing out on a seat by 1,012 and then just 556 votes. Prior to her election in 2022, she also unsuccessfully stood for election in the Belfast North Westminster constituency at the 2019 UK general election. She came in a distant third place with 4,824 votes, equating to 9.8% of the total vote. However, this was an increase of 4.4% compared to the previous Alliance candidate in

(her partner - Sam Nelson).

Member of the Legislative Assembly (2022–)

Nuala McAllister was Alliance's candidate for the 2022 Assembly election in Belfast North. She polled 4,381 first preference votes and was elected on the 11th count. She gained the seat held by

SDLP The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Irelan ...

Deputy Leader and

Infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

Minister,

Nichola Mallon Nichola Mallon (born 23 August 1979) is an Irish politician from Northern Ireland serving as Deputy Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) since 2017. She served as a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Belfast No ...

, by a margin of 991 votes, in one of 9 gains for Alliance in the election.

Personal life

McAllister has two sons with her partner, Sam Nelson, and was the first "young mother" to be Lord Mayor. The couple's decision not to marry was influenced by their shared

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

beliefs.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mcallister, Nuala Living people Alliance Party of Northern Ireland MLAs Northern Ireland MLAs 2022–2027 Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century women politicians from Northern Ireland Female members of the Northern Ireland Assembly Women councillors in Northern Ireland Politicians from Belfast Alliance Party parliamentary candidates