Brenda Hale (Northern Ireland politician)

For the British judge, see Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond.

Brenda Hale
OBE
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly
for Lagan Valley
In office
5 May 2011 – 30 January 2017
Preceded byPaul Butler
Succeeded byPat Catney
Personal details
Born (1968-01-29) 29 January 1968 (age 56)
Bangor, Northern Ireland
NationalityBritish
Political partyDemocratic Unionist Party
SpouseMark Hale (died 2009, KIA)
Children2

Victoria

Alexandra

Brenda Hale, OBE, (born 29 January 1968) is a Unionist politician from Northern Ireland representing the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). She sat in the Northern Ireland Assembly as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Lagan Valley from 2011[1] until her narrow defeat at the 2017 Assembly election.

Hale's husband served with the British Army and was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. Hale then started to speak to the Ministry of Defence on behalf of other war widows.[2] As of August 2015, she is a Political Member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board.[3]

Her book, I Married A Soldier,[4] was published in 2017. It details Hale's family life with her husband and daughters leading to her entry into Northern Irish politics.

Hale was honoured in the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours list and was appointed an OBE for political service.[5]

  1. ^ Lagan Valley, UTV
  2. ^ Sharon Ferguson, "Out with the old and in with the new at Stormont", BBC News, 9 May 2011
  3. ^ "The Board". Archived from the original on 8 May 2016. Retrieved 22 August 2015.
  4. ^ I Married A Soldier. ASIN 0745980112.
  5. ^ Birthday Honours lists 2018