Three women won historic seats in Northern Ireland’s House of Commons this week. Unionist Lady Sylvia Hermon was the first woman to be elected in the province of Ulster since Bernadette Devlin in 1969. The lawyer and academic said she hoped her victory would encourage other women to get involved in politics. Iris Robinson of the Democratic Unionist Party will represent the “formerly male bastion” of Strangford. Robinson describes politics as “a way of life” that she has grown into during her marriage to Peter Robinson, the re-elected MP for East Belfast. In a close race, Michelle Gildernew of Fermanagh South Tyrone became the first woman MP from the Sinn Fein party since 1918.
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