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.
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Colum Eastwood is the Leader of the SDLP.
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.