Patricia O'Lynn (born 28 September 1989) 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 ...
academic, educator, and politician who was 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. ...
(MLA) from 2022 to 2023. 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 month ...
for
North Antrim.
Political career
Early career
In 2016, as part of the
Washington-Ireland Program, O'Lynn worked as a congressional intern for U.S. Senator
John McCain.
O'Lynn ran as the Alliance Party candidate for North Antrim in the
2017 Northern Ireland Assembly election, but was unsuccessful. In September 2017, O'Lynn met with
Kate Nicholl, then an Alliance councillor on Belfast City Council, who encouraged her to join Alliance and run as a candidate. She was an Alliance candidate again later that year, this time for the
2017 UK general election, running in
North Antrim. She came fifth, with 2,723 votes, maintaining Alliance's percentage share of the vote from the
previous general election.
O'Lynn then served as a councillor, representing
Ballymena, in
Mid and East Antrim Borough Council
Mid and East Antrim Borough Council is a local authority that was established on 1 April 2015. It replaced Ballymena Borough Council, Carrickfergus Borough Council and Larne Borough Council.
History
On 2 December 2021, the councils chief ex ...
. She was elected at the
2019 local elections, gaining a seat from the DUP.
Later that year, at the
2019 general election, O'Lynn was again the Alliance candidate for the parliamentary constituency of North Antrim. She polled 6,231 votes, taking third place, and increased her share of the vote by 8.5%.
From April 2021 to October 2021, O'Lynn served as a special adviser to
Justice Minister
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
Naomi Long
Naomi Rachel Long MLA (née Johnston; born 13 December 1971) is a Northern Irish politician who served as Minister of Justice in the Northern Ireland Executive from January 2020 to October 2022. She has served as leader of the Alliance Party ...
while Long's other special adviser Claire Johnson was on
maternity leave
Parental leave, or family leave, is an employee benefit available in almost all countries. The term "parental leave" may include maternity, Paternity (law), paternity, and adoption leave; or may be used distinctively from "maternity leave" an ...
.
Member of the Legislative Assembly (2022-23)
On 7 May 2022, O'Lynn was elected as the first ever Alliance MLA and the first woman to represent
North Antrim in the
Northern Ireland Assembly. She was elected on the sixth stage of the count, defeating incumbent
DUP MLA
Mervyn Storey
Robert Mervyn Storey (born 4 September 1964), usually known as Mervyn Storey, is a Unionist politician from Northern Ireland. He formerly represented the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in the Northern Ireland Assembly, where he was a Member ...
by a margin of 288 votes - the third tightest margin of victory in Northern Ireland. Her election was considered an upset in the staunchly unionist constituency of North Antrim with ''BelfastLive'' describing it as a "seismic shift". In her victory speech, O'Lynn said that the "age of entitlement is over" for DUP dominance in the constituency.
Jim Allister
James Hugh Allister (born 2 April 1953) is a British Unionist politician and barrister in Northern Ireland. He founded the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) political party in 2007, leading the party since its formation.
Allister has served ...
, on the other hand, said that Mervyn Storey's loss was a "matter of great sadness to me that his seat has been taken by the crypto-nationalist Alliance Party".
On 22 February 2023, O'Lynn announced that she would resign from Stormont on 31 March to take up a job at
Queen's University Belfast. O'Lynn said that it "has been an honour to serve the people of North Antrim" but regrets that she could not "do so in the Assembly chamber itself due to the ongoing impasse, which has proved frustrating". Former MLA Mervyn Storey, who lost his seat to O'Lynn, questioned her "committment" to North Antrim. O'Lynn responded that Storey "desperately needs" a hug. On 16 March, two weeks before leaving office, O'Lynn shared a new personal website that descibes her as a keynote speaker, author and coach.
The vacant position created from Lynn's resignation was filled by the co-option of
Sian Mulholland
Sian Mulholland ( née O'Neill) is a Northern Irish politician who has been an Alliance Party Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for North Antrim since April 2023.
Political career Belfast City Council (2015-22)
In September 2015, Mu ...
, an Alliance councillor on
Lisburn and Castlereagh Council. Mulholland was previously co-opted onto Lisburn and Castlereagh Council in 2022 to fill
David Honeyford's vacancy following his election to the Assembly and Mulholland also served 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 ...
from 2015 to 2022.
Personal life
In 2021, O'Lynn completed doctoral research at
Queen’s University Belfast
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. Her doctoral thesis was titled 'Mainstreams, Margins and the Spaces In-Between: Youth Experiences of School Exclusion in Northern Ireland' and focused on young people’s experiences of exclusion from school within Northern Ireland. She also received the Sir Tomas Dixon Award and the Department for Economy doctoral scholarship. O'Lynn officially graduated from Queen's University Belfast with a PhD on 2 July 2022.
Academic works
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References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:OLynn, Patricia
Living people
Alliance Party of Northern Ireland MLAs
Northern Ireland MLAs 2022–2027
Alumni of Queen's University Belfast
Alliance Party of Northern Ireland councillors
Women councillors in Northern Ireland
Female members of the Northern Ireland Assembly
Politicians from County Antrim
21st-century women politicians from Northern Ireland
1989 births