Alliance Party leader Naomi Long poses for a photograph.This week we are joined by Alliance Party leader Naomi Long who discusses her early life, transition into politics, why she joined the Alliance party, online trolls, sock-puppet accounts, and also Irish Citizenship. You can follow Naomi on Twitter here.

This is part 1 to a 2 part podcast. You can find part 2 here.

Hayange how buy modafinil Naomi Rachel Long (née Tuntum prayingly Johnston; born 13 December 1971) is a Northern Irish politician who has been leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland since 2016. A Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Belfast East since 2016, she previously held the same seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly from 2003 to 2010 until her election to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2015 as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Westminster constituency of Belfast East. She served as the second elected female Lord Mayor of Belfast from 2009 to 2010. In 2019, she was elected as the Alliance Party candidate for the European Parliament, becoming the first ever Alliance MEP.

Having served as a local councillor, MLA, MP and MEP, Long is the only active politician in Northern Ireland to have served in every elected position.

Born in East Belfast, she attended Mersey Street Primary and Bloomfield Collegiate School. She graduated from Queen’s University of Belfast with a degree in civil engineering in 1994, worked in a structural engineering consultancy for two years, held a research and training post at Queen’s University for three years, and then went back into environmental and hydraulic engineering consultancy for four years.

Colum Eastwood stands on the podium.SDLP leader Colum Eastwood joins us for our first podcast as we discuss the impasse in the North, English/Irish relations, Brexit, and what it takes to create a Shared Ireland.You can follow Colum on Twitter here.

Don’t forget to join the conversation on our twitter page. https://twitter.com/SharedIreland/

Colum Eastwood is the Leader of the SDLP.

Al Marsá Colum Eastwood MLA (born 30 April 1983) is an Irish nationalist politician and leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) since 2015. He was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2011, and has since been re-elected. He is also the SDLP candidate in the 2019 European Parliament election to represent Northern Ireland.

Colum Eastwood was born in Derry, where he was educated at St John’s Primary School (Creggan) and at St Columb’s College. He later attended the University of Liverpool, where he studied Latin American Studies though he did not finish his degree. He married Rachael Parkes in December 2013 and they live in Derry.

Eastwood was elected to Derry City Council in 2005, and elected for a one-year term as Mayor of Derry in June 2010. Aged 27, he was the youngest mayor of the city to date.

Following his election to the Northern Ireland Assembly in May 2011, Eastwood was appointed SDLP representative on the committee of the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister. He sits on the Northern Ireland Assembly committees on Standards and Privileges, and the Environment. He is the youngest SDLP member of the Northern Ireland Assembly.