THE FACE OF Northern Irish politics is changing after the weekend’s local elections, with Sinn Féin making history in becoming the largest party after winning 144 of the 462 seats on offer.
Sinn Féin vice president Michelle O’Neill described her party’s victory as “momentous”, while DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said unionism needed to learn lessons from the election.
History has also been made among the 462 individuals to be elected to the 11 local councils across the North.
In Derry, the SDLP’s Lilian Seenoi-Barr became the first black person to be elected to any office in Northern Ireland.
She was co-opted onto the Council two years ago but contested and won the seat in the Foyleside District Electoral Area of Derry and Strabane City Council this time round.
Seenoi-Barr is from Kenya, and speaking to The Journal, she spoke about how it has grabbed the attention of the Kenyan media.
“I understand it has been trending in Kenya and the media there have been getting in touch with me and congratulating me,” said Seenoi-Barr.
“It is a historic moment, so it’s been emotional, it’s been overwhelming.
“I am so proud to carry that flag and to say that Kenyans can come to Ireland, make their home in Ireland and get involved in public life and make a difference where they have now decided to settle and make their own families.”
Kenyan senator Ledama Olekina, who has over 1.2 million followers on Twitter, was among the high profile figures to offer their congratulations to Seenoi-Barr.
Congratulations 🎈🎊🎉🍾 to my baby sister @Lseenoi the first ever black person to be elected as a councilor in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. May the Good Lord open many doors for you. pic.twitter.com/LKI6DuEOkW
— Sen. Ledama Olekina (@ledamalekina) May 20, 2023
“I am very proud and I tell everybody, I am now truly adopted by the people of Derry and they treat me as a Derry Girl and that is absolutely incredible,” said Seenoi-Barr.
“I am very humbled that I have completely been accepted within our society and I hope every single person who has moved to Derry can feel the same.”
Seenoi-Barr has been very active in local politics for over a decade and established the Northwest Migrants Forum in 2012, which works to tackle racial inequality and prejudice.
In 2019, Seenoi-Barr narrowly missed out on being elected in the 2019 local elections and in 2021, the SDLP approached her about co-opting her into the council that was vacated by Mary Durkan.
Seenoi-Barr was successful in the selection process she told The Journal that her hard work over these two years has seen her elected at the ballot box.
“I was co-opted and the people saw how hard I have worked for them,” she said. “It feels great to have my own personal mandate from the public.
“I had a mandate from the SDLP members but this is now a clear mandate from the people of Foyleside who say we believe in you and we want to give you an opportunity to continue representing us.
“It’s very humbling and the overwhelming support I have received since then, it has really touched my heart.
“My phone has not stopped, my emails are almost crashing and I’m getting very good wishes from everywhere.”
Seenoi-Barr said she hopes her election can act as an inspiration for others.
“I really hope that people will see it not just as a woman of colour who has made history but they take that as positive progress for the North of Ireland.
“Regardless of your background, you can make a difference, you can serve your community and I do hope that my success encourages others, particularly from a minority ethnic background, to put their name forward and realise their potential to effect positive change within our society.
“I hope that they can now turn around and say, ‘if Lilian can do it, I can also do it’.”
The Alliance Party’s John Hyland was also successfully returned at the ballot box having been co-opted into his council seat.
Dubbed “the wee scouser” by some, the Liverpudlian moved to Ballymena three years ago to be with his partner and is the first openly-gay politician to represent the area.
A HUGE thank you to all who came out & voted yesterday.
— John M. Hyland 🔶 (@JohnMHyland_) May 19, 2023
I’ve been coined “the wee scouser” by some & I’m so grateful that the people of Ballymena have put their faith in me as their @allianceparty rep on @mea_bc.
Thank you to our team on my 1st ever election campaign. pic.twitter.com/31otZdhrL0
“I just wanted to educate myself as a typical ignorant Englishman of Irish history and culture,” said Hyland, “and I got a little bit obsessed and fascinated by the politics because it’s so vastly different to anything.”
He told The Journal that he “just kept coming back to Alliance”.
“While I understood from educating myself about the constitutional issue, I just kept going back to Alliance as, ‘you know what, when it happens, it will happen and people will vote how they want to vote. But in the meantime, we need to be governing for people as it stands, and if things change, we govern to people as it changes.’
“For me, that’s where I felt Alliance was and what it stood for. I kind of fell in love with where I’ve moved to, I can see its potential that is really untapped and I wanted to do my part for the place that I now call home.”
Hyland worked as an assistant to Alliance Party councillor Patricia O’Lynn, and then found himself being co-opted into her seat around a year later.
“There was a bit of hesitation,” said Hyland.
“Not being from the area and it being so vastly different, I put my name in the ring for the elections, but because I was so heavily involved in Patricia O’Lynn’s election campaign.
“I was her election agent, just because I’ve got a big gob, and people said you could do well at this and you should put yourself forward for co-option.
“I’ll be completely honest, I had massive impostor syndrome, because I’m not originally from the area and I’ve only been here a few years.
“But the amount of people who said, ‘you know what John, that doesn’t matter. You can learn that, you’ve got the right head on you, you’ve got that background, and you’ll learn all this as you go along.”
He said most people on the doors when he was canvassing were impressed that someone who moved here so recently wanted to make a difference.
“So definitely that imposter syndrome that I felt when I got co-opted, it’s still there.
“I think we should all have a bit of nervousness and hesitation, because if you’ve got perfect confidence, then something’s wrong.
“But definitely I know this is my role, this is my mandate, people have got confidence in me, so definitely that’s confidence builder.”
When asked if he soon hopes it won’t be noteworthy that a gay candidate has been elected in the North, Hyland offers a nuanced take.
“I hope so in one respect but in another respect, I do believe that representation matters, particularly in this kind of area,” said Hyland.
“I would like to see us go to a time when it shouldn’t matter but in the same vein, I think we should have representation from all facets of the community.
“So whilst I don’t want my higher identity to be around the fact that I’m the gay councillor – I say that and obviously I’ve had a lot of press around that and I’ve made a big focus about it – it is because I’m the only openly gay elected in the area.”
He also points to the inclusion of more people from other countries as the next ceiling to be broken.
“In Ballymena, we do have a lot foreign nationals in the area and it’d be great if we could have representation from them on council.
“That might be the next kind of push to try and get some involvement from that side of things.
“Representation matters from the different communities, different identities but in terms of sexuality, it would be nice to get to a point where it isn’t an issue.”
There was yet more history made within the Alliance Party, with Lewis Boyle becoming the youngest person to be elected to political office in the North.
Aged just 18, Boyle is set to sit his Politics A-Level exam in less than two weeks’ time.
He was elected to the Antrim and Newtownabbey Council and will be the sole Alliance representative in the Ballyclare DEA.
I’m absolutely delighted that Ballyclare has put their faith in me to represent them on council. I can’t wait to get to work implementing positive change for people in our Borough. 💛#LE23 https://t.co/aXjJrMQmS3
— Cllr Lewis Boyle (@LewisTBoyle) May 20, 2023
“I wanted to get involved in politics because I’d seen many things that the council wasn’t doing well and there were things that I thought could be improved,” said Boyle.
He added: “Around 30% of the population of Newtownabbey is under the age of 25 but there were no councillors in that age demographic.
“I thought there was no better way to improve the place where I live than to get involved in the decision making process directly.”
When asked if he was confident of being elected, Boyle told The Journal that the Ballyclare seat he won was one of the three target seats in the local council.
“Whenever I stood to be selected to be the candidate for Ballyclare, I knew that I was going in a target seat, that I wasn’t going to be a paper candidacy, that there was a real chance of me getting elected.
“So that’s why I stepped forward, not as a paper candidate but in order to actually get in and make change to deliver for people.”
While Boyle said some people on the doors were taken aback to be asked for their vote by an 18-year-old, he added that “generally the responses on the doors to my age were very positive”.
“A number of people were saying that none of the other candidates stood out to them but I did because of my age, so generally on the whole I would say the responses on the doors were positive.”
He told The Journal that while he is “very proud”, he added that he couldn’t have done it without the help of his Alliance team.
“It’s a historic moment, but it shows that Alliance is putting young people forward, so it’s historic for young people and it also shows the party’s commitment to diversity.”
Boyle also said that his youth will come with more positives than negatives for his time as a councillor.
“I think it’s incredibly important and valuable for the council to have a perspective of somebody so young.
“For every single issue coming forward, there’s going to be that representation of young people and that it’s so crucial.
“Of course young people can lobby the council but actually having a young person directly elected in that decision making process is so incredibly important and I think that’s going to be very valuable for the council to have for young people over the next four years.”
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