Michelle Gildernew

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michelle Gildernew MP MLA

MLA
Incumbent
Assumed office 1998
Succeeded by	Incumbent
Constituency	Fermanagh/South Tyrone

Born	March 28, 1970 Dungannon, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
Political party	Sinn Féin
Spouse	Jimmy Gildernew
Website	Michelle Gildernew MLA

Michelle Gildernew (born March 28, 1970, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland) is an Irish Republican politician. She is the Sinn Féin Member of Parliament (abstentionist) for the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency.

She first won the seat in the 2001 election, winning the seat (previously held by Ken Maginnis of the Ulster Unionist Party) with a majority of 53, due to a divided Unionist vote. The defeated UUP candidate claimed that because a polling station in the west of the constituency was kept open after the allotted time due to threats from Republicans, the result was invalid, but Judge Robert Carswell upheld the vote result because it was decided that the event did not significantly affect result.

Gildernew retained the seat in the 2005 vote, significantly increasing her majority to 4,582, although had the two main unionist parties agreed a voting pact (as had happened up to and including 1997), an agreed unionist candidate may have won the seat. However, had there not been two Unionist candidates phsephologists maintain Gildernew would have reclaimed her seat.

In keeping with the Sinn Féin policy of abstentionism, Gildernew has not taken up her seat in the British House of Commons.

She is also a member of the currently-suspended Northern Ireland Assembly where she served as vice chair of the Committee of Social Development and as the Minister for Agriculture. She is a member of the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle (National Executive) and is the party's spokeswoman on equality and housing.

Gildernew was born in Dungannon, County Tyrone and educated at the University of Ulster, located in Coleraine, County Londonderry. Her family has a history of controversy surrounding the Unionist-dominated Northern Ireland government of the 1950s-60s. In 1968, a 19 year old Protestant unmarried woman, Emily Beattie, a female secretary to a local UUP politician, was given a public housing assignment in Caledon, Co. Tyrone ahead of a Catholic woman, Annie Gildernew (Gildernew's grandmother), who had a large family.

The Northern Ireland Government were accused of sectarian motives for this action and were highly criticised at the time.