Eileen Paisley, Baroness Paisley of St George's

Who is Eileen Paisley, Baroness Paisley of St George's?

Eileen Emily Paisley, Baroness Paisley of St George's is a Northern Irish Unionist politician, a vice-president of the Democratic Unionist Party, and the wife of Ian Paisley, now Lord Bannside, former leader of the DUP. She became a life peer in 2006.

Eileen Cassells married Ian Richard Kyle Paisley on 13 October 1956. They have five children, a daughter Rhonda, and two further daughters Sharon and Cherith. They also have twin sons, Kyle and Ian.

Eileen Paisley was elected as a councillor in Belfast in 1967 for the Protestant Unionist Party, the forerunner to the DUP, three years before her husband was elected to Stormont and Westminster. She was also elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973 and the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention in 1975, representing Belfast East both times.

It was announced on 11 April 2006 that she would be one of the first three members of the DUP to be created a life peer. She was gazetted as Baroness Paisley of St George's, of St George's in the County of Antrim, after the ward that she represented on Belfast City Council, on 14 June 2006, and was introduced to the House of Lords on 3 July 2006. Following her husband's elevation in July 2010, she and her husband now both hold seats in the House of Lords.