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Michelle Gildernew

Michelle Gildernew
MLA
Michelle Gildernew.jpg
Gildernew in 2007
Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development
In office
8 May 2007 – 5 May 2011
Leader Gerry Adams
Preceded by Bríd Rodgers
Succeeded by Michelle O'Neill
Member of Parliament
for Fermanagh and South Tyrone
In office
7 June 2001 – 30 March 2015
Preceded by Ken Maginnis
Succeeded by Tom Elliott
Majority 7,065
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly
for Fermanagh and South Tyrone
Assumed office
5 May 2016
Preceded by Bronwyn McGahan
In office
25 June 1998 – 7 July 2012
Preceded by Position established
Succeeded by Bronwyn McGahan
Majority 7,026
Personal details
Born (1970-03-28) 28 March 1970 (age 47)
Dungannon, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
Nationality Irish
Political party Sinn Féin
Spouse(s) Jimmy Taggart
Alma mater University of Ulster
Website Michelle Gildernew MP

Michelle Gildernew (born 28 March 1970) is an Irish Sinn Féin politician and former Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development in the Northern Ireland Executive. She was the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone from 2001 to 2015, and was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for Fermanagh and South Tyrone between June 1998 and July 2012. She was re-elected to the Assembly in 2016 and 2017.

Gildernew is Sinn Féin's health spokesperson and has been a member of the party's Ard Chomhairle (National Executive). In the 2007–11 Assembly, she served as Vice Chair of the Committee of Social Development and was a member of the Committee of the Centre as well as of other statutory and ad-hoc committees.

Born in Dungannon, Gildernew attended St Catherine's College Armagh and later the University of Ulster, Coleraine. After graduating from university, she travelled extensively in Europe, the United States and Australia, where she worked for a year. She is married to Jimmy and is the mother of two boys, Emmet and Eunan, and one girl, Aoise.

Gildernew is one of ten siblings from an Irish republican family based at the "Gildernew farm complex" (as described on Ordnance Survey maps) in County Tyrone. During the 1960s, the family were leading figures in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and took part in a 1968 protest in Caledon, County Tyrone over housing discrimination.


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