David Trimble believed he was probably autistic — and some of his closest aides agreed
SAM MCBRIDE, Sunday Independent and Sunday Life, September 7th, 2025
The late Northern Ireland first minister David Trimble believed he was probably autistic — and some of his closest aides agreed, according to a new biography of the former unionist leader published this week.
Former BBC journalist Stephen Walker's book, David Trimble: Peacemaker, reports cautiously and sensitively on something that has long been privately suggested in political circles. Some readers might recoil from a discussion of what feels like personal information, yet this detail is both enlightening and historically significant.
Walker was told by the writer Ruth Dudley Edwards, part of Trimble's informal coterie of advisers, that he was a "most obliging, kind friend” but "never got signals”. She said a number of colleagues had told him they thought he was neurodivergent: "David said to me in later years, 'They tell me I'm autistic and I probably am, rather'.”
Trimble's press secretary, David Kerr, admired the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader's far-sightedness, telling Walker: "You have to understand the man that he was. He was highly intelligent, probably on the spectrum in terms of his level of intelligence — highly intelligent man. He was able to read documents faster than anybody. He was able to properly process information and see through issues and see beyond issues further and faster than anybody.”
His economic adviser Graham Gudgin was in awe of Trimble's ability, telling Walker: "He was a difficult man to like because he wasn't communicating. I think he was on some sort of autistic spectrum. He had a phenomenal memory, better than anybody I met in Cambridge.”
Trimble's intelligence is beyond dispute. He got first-class honours from Queen's University Belfast in 1968 — an exceptionally rare occurrence at the time. Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson and other political figures operating at the highest level respected his intellect. But the book is also replete with the stories of Trimble's friends expressing their frustration at Trimble's social skills.
Walker — who interviewed 100 people for the book — describes Trimble as "shy and awkward to the point that some initially found him rude and standoffish. He could be visionary, reactionary, charming and combative, all in the one day”.
The former UUP press officer Alex Kane observed Trimble's campaigning style: "He had this weird way when he knocked on doors. He always looked terribly uncomfortable, as if somehow he shouldn't be there, that he was somehow disturbing them. He didn't do small talk.”
James Cooper, who was at university with Trimble and would become a key UUP ally, said: "I would not call him eccentric but [thought of him] as someone who was slightly apart.” Herb Wallace, an old friend and colleague from his days as a law lecturer at Queen's, said "he was an odd man in many ways”, but that this involved tremendous commitment to the truth, however inconvenient. "Sometimes, I think he hurt people because he just told them the truth.” These are not the words of people who disliked Trimble, but of those who held him in high esteem.
Politicians not Robots
What makes a politician tick is important to understanding why they do what they do. These people are not robots; they all have inherent strengths and weaknesses.
Blair's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell recalled: "In many ways he was an odd guy. He wasn't a natural politician... He could be unbelievably infuriating and difficult and complicated, but he could be warm, funny and self-deprecating.”
Many of his associates said that after getting to know him he could be great company. He could also be extraordinarily rude. When introduced to deputy first minister Seamus Mallon's chief of staff, Trimble cut off an official to say "I know very well who he is, and I have no wish to be introduced” before walking off.
Walker himself recounts how after being appointed BBC NI's London correspondent, a UUP official organised for him to "bump into” Trimble coming out of a studio interview. Walker writes: "When Trimble emerged and walked towards me, I introduced myself and proffered a hand. I said: 'Mr Trimble, I am Stephen Walker, BBC Northern Ireland's new London Correspondent. I just wanted to say hello.' To which Trimble uttered three words: 'Hello and goodbye.' He then walked off.”
As the National Autistic Society sets out, autism is not a disease, an illness, or a neurological disorder; it is understood as a spectrum because each autistic person has a unique combination of characteristics.
There is no medical assessment or other hard evidence that Trimble was autistic. All we have is what some of those closest to him observed.
It should be added that many people who are autistic are impeccably polite. Many people who are not autistic are insufferably rude.
Nevertheless, had he been diagnosed with autism and had it been widely known, it probably could have led to Trimble being given the benefit of the doubt more often. Politics is a bloodsport, but it also involves humanity — much of it unseen by the public — where individuals face challenging personal circumstances.
But if there had been suggestions that Trimble was autistic in 1995, would he have got the leadership? In a different era, mostly conservative UUP members might have seen it as too much of a risk.
Had they done so, it could have been a monumental mistake. Something in his makeup enabled him to brush off crisis after crisis that would have crushed almost any other leader. His ability to survive for seven years after the Good Friday Agreement even as unionism turned against the deal was astonishing, and critical to it becoming embedded.
If Trimble was autistic, it is a powerful demonstration not only of what such a person can achieve, but what society can gain from recognising the talents of those whose brains function in this way.
It says much about Trimble that despite his shyness and gauche behaviour, he inspired incredible loyalty, as summed up by another former adviser, Ray Hayden: "This was a guy who had courage for breakfast, courage for lunch, courage for dinner.”
'David was nakedly sectarian': McAleese on Trimble's reaction to Bloody Sunday
Sunday Independent, September 7th, 2025
A new biography of unionist leader by Stephen Walker recounts unsettling comments in wake of Derry massacre
A Sunday in January 1972 marked one of the blackest days of the Troubles. On the penultimate day of the month, thousands of civil rights demonstrators took to the streets of Derry.
The protest had been banned by the Stormont government and there was a heavy presence of soldiers and police officers. After skirmishes between local youths and the British army soldiers moved in to make arrests. Shortly afterwards, members of the Parachute Regiment began to open fire.
Many of those shot or wounded were trying to flee from the soldiers, and others were hurt as they helped the injured. By the time the shooting stopped, 13 people had been killed, and another died later. The events of the day became known as Bloody Sunday.
The British army claimed they had been fired on and said their soldiers had been under threat. To the nationalist community this was seen as cold-blooded murder. That night the IRA was inundated with people who wanted to join.
Most unionists saw things differently and accepted the British army's version of events — even though it was being questioned.
The next day, David Trimble, as normal, made his way to Queen's University in Belfast, where he worked as a law lecturer. There was only one topic of conversation on campus — the shootings in Derry. Law student Mary McAleese remembers that Monday very well. She recalls meeting him that day: "I travelled over to the university that day as I did many a morning on the bus with a man who is now a retired High Court judge, Catholic and a very fine fellow, very fine brain.
"And we were walking down the avenue towards the library when David Trimble came towards us and a huge smile. And said words to the effect 'isn't it a wonderful day'. And I was a bit taken aback precisely because he wasn't the kind of person who ever greeted you.
"You know, he didn't. If he met you in the street he wouldn't have greeted you. He wouldn't have known who we were, certainly at the very beginning of our academic careers in Queen's. But he never was a person to engage in conversation. But on that day, he was very, very friendly, and you know the Pollyanna in me thought: 'Oh gosh, this is remarkable, what's happened to him, he's become so friendly.'
"And my friend said nothing until we got into the library, and there were little groups of people standing around to whom he had done the same thing. And they said that he was actually going up and down the road looking for Catholics, to whom he could say, wasn't it a wonderful day, which wasn't a reference actually to the day at all but a reference to the day before.”
McAleese is convinced Trimble was talking about the shootings in Derry the day before and says the remarks were obvious to everyone that he made them to: "You see he was nakedly sectarian, you know, back in those days. He was. Now, I had not experienced that side of him, I have to say, until that day, no direct experience of it. I was stunned when it was brought to my attention.”
McAleese's observations are worth exploring. Was Trimble really gloating over the deaths of Catholic civilians in Derry? She is in no doubt what her lecturer was referring to when he greeted students on that January morning. As other students have previously pointed out, Trimble rarely engaged in much social conversation before and after class. He was quiet and reserved, which meant encounters with him were limited and often formal — which makes his behaviour after Bloody Sunday stand out.
Since being appointed to the staff at Queen's, he had kept his politics out of the classroom, but on this occasion, McAleese suggests that his thoughts shone through, and they were deeply unsettling.
She also insists Trimble's Bloody Sunday remarks, the day after the shootings, were not a one-off. She recalls a story of Trimble being at a dinner at Queen's and using "naked sectarian language” to describe Catholics and how a diner sitting close to Trimble was "absolutely shocked”.
Moderating influence of Daphne Orr
McAleese believes the Trimble she first encountered in the 1970s evolved into a different man who would ultimately become a worthy Nobel laureate. She says his views and attitude changed, and he matured as a person over the years — a change she asserts has much to do with the influence of Daphne Orr, a contemporary of McAleese, who would become Trimble's second wife.
McAleese says Daphne was "utterly instrumental” in changing David's perceptions and thinking.
In 1998, Trimble was on a family holiday in the Moselle Valley when a Real IRA bomb tore apart the centre of Omagh. After delays in contacting him due to his location, the UUP leader rushed back to Northern Ireland
Within days, funerals were being arranged and Trimble was determined as first minster that he would attend as many services as he could.
He and Dennis Rogan, the UUP chairman, went to a funeral mass at St Mary's Church in Buncrana in Co Donegal for three boys who died in the bombing.
Trimble's presence at the church took on much symbolism. Firstly, it was over the Border in the Irish Republic, and secondly, it was a Catholic service. As Orangemen, both Trimble and Rogan knew that membership of the Orange Order forbade members from being present at a Catholic mass.
Trimble and Rogan were made very welcome at the mass for eight-year-old Oran Doherty and for James Barker and Sean McLoughlin, who were both aged 12.
The Bishop of Derry, Dr Séamus Hegarty, who addressed the congregation, made it clear that there was genuine warmth directed towards the visitors from Belfast: "We want to assure you that you are among friends. Among people who are looking to you and your colleagues to give us the type of climate in Northern Ireland which will be conducive to the building of a genuine and lasting just peace.”
Trimble was not the only high-profile mourner there that day. Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams also attended, as did Trimble's former colleague from Queen's University, McAleese. After a successful career in academia, McAleese had been elected president of Ireland in 1997. She was sitting in front of Trimble and at the end of the church service she turned around to greet him.
"I was there and David was there, and he was sitting behind me in the seat. Now, you know we hadn't ever been really bosom pals, let's face it. I would always have regarded Daphne very highly, and he was sitting behind me and I turned initially just to welcome him and was going to shake his hand, and the two of us just stood up and hugged and both of us were very tearful. But that was a moment, I think, when a lot of things just fell away, a lot of old baggage. A lot of old stuff just fell away.
"I saw in him the man he had become — the quite extraordinary person he had become. Now, he hadn't abandoned unionism, and he hadn't abandoned his beliefs, and he hadn't abandoned those principles.
Still, of course, there would be times, you know, when he would be quite scathing about the Republic. But that was a different David Trimble. That was a man who had been on the hot-red forge of life.”
This is an extract from 'David Trimble: Peacemaker', a new biography of the late UUP leader, written by former BBC journalist Stephen Walker and published on Thursday by Gill Books
Trimble's final days revealed
SAM MCBRIDE, NORTHERN IRELAND EDITOR, Belfast Telegraph, September 6th, 2025
MONUMENTAL UNIONIST LEADER NEVER DISCUSSED HIS OWN DEATH EVEN AS HIS MORTALITY LOOMED EVER LARGER BEFORE HIM SPECIAL REPORT
On the day that David Trimble died, he had no realisation of how close his life was to its end.
Hours before his death in July 2022, the political giant was discussing a Mediterranean cruise with his wife for that December; days later, a plethora of senior British, Irish and Northern Irish politicians would join his family, friends and former party colleagues in Lisburn's Harmony Hill Presbyterian Church to mourn one of unionism's most consequential leaders.
The story of Lord Trimble's final years is set out in a new biography by the former BBC journalist Stephen Walker. David Trimble: Peacemaker, which will be published on Thursday, is based on 100 interviews, including with many members of the Trimble family.
While the former Ulster Unionist leader's sudden death was a shock, by then his family knew that he was gravely unwell.
In August 2019, David and Lady Daphne were in Warwickshire boating — a favoured pastime of Trimble's, which he'd increasingly indulged in after leaving frontline politics in 2005.
But as they negotiated the locks on the Grand Union Canal, Daphne thought that her husband was not his normal self and had a “lack of sharpness”, she told Walker.
The following month, she found him “a wee bit withdrawn” at a world summit of Nobel Peace laureates in the Mexican city of Mérida. Events which Trimble would normally have enjoyed were “a bit of a struggle”, his wife observed.
Disoriented on Tube
Over time, the concerns grew. On one occasion on the Tube in London — which he knew well — he became disorientated, not knowing where he was.
By the spring of 2021, the Trimbles' children were also beginning to notice that their father had changed.
Son Richard recalled chatting to his father after a lockdown lifted: “I was thinking that he was making mistakes in his speech, and he was not quite as sharp as he was before, and that was a bad moment”.
Daughter Vicky said: “He was just doing strange things, and we all noticed. But none of us were able to tell him, to say, 'Can you go to the doctor?' Because he wasn't the sort of person to go to the doctor.”
What convinced him of the need for medical assessment was an incident where Vicky went to her father's London flat to find it empty, but the front door was open and unlocked.
In April 2021, he was diagnosed with mixed dementia, which was a combination of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. Medics and the family remained hopeful that a drug would slow its progression.
Iain Trimble told Walker that he remembers his brother confiding in him that he had Alzheimer's: “I started to notice that he was missing the odd word in telephone conversations a few years before I discovered what it was. I discovered what it was in 2021. That is when he took me to one side in the garden of his house and told me. He said, 'I have a bit of an issue'. I said, 'What is that?' And he said, 'I have dementia.' So, I said, 'What? Alzheimer's?' And he said 'Yes'.”
Richard remembers his father coming to the Christmas table that year: “Dad was really quite unwell. And on Christmas Day he really should have been in bed, but he came down for Christmas dinner in his suit with a waistcoat on.
“And then he went and got the best bottle of bubbly out of the garage [and] he was popping it off and saying, 'Let's fill your glass up.' He was just trying to have Christmas dinner the way it always was. He really made it, in retrospect, you know.
“He was really pushing himself to do that, to be together as a family at Christmas time. And he really just wanted family time the same way as it would normally be.”
His other son, Nicholas, who followed his father into politics as an Ulster Unionist councillor, recalled wondering if it would be their last Christmas together: “I remember sort of thinking, 'I'm not sure he'll even make it to next Christmas.'
“It turned out he didn't make it to the next Christmas. That was the last Christmas. And I think dad must have felt that that was a real possibility.”
In early 2022, tests revealed further bad news. His daughter Sarah, who worked as a pharmacist, said: “When they saw a shadow on his chest, that was maybe a bit tough for me, because I kind of knew where it was probably going to be headed that way before we got the confirmation that it was cancer.”
‘Very much an optimist’
Yet, even after her father's lung cancer diagnosis and the realisation that it was too advanced for surgery, he didn't give up hope, Sarah said: “I think at heart my dad was very much an optimist. And I think he just assumed that whatever it was, he would be fine.”
He began chemotherapy in February 2022, with Daphne recalling that “he made light of it. As far as he was concerned, everything was fine”.
But Richard said that, although his father put on a brave face, he was not ignorant of the reality. He said: “I think for us we were terrified of the dementia. But dad was actually more terrified of the lung cancer, because lung cancer is what took his dad — my grandfather.
“He was dead before I was born, so I never met him. Dad was terrified because of having watched his dad die of lung cancer in quite a lot of agony, because end-of-life care in those days was not as good as it is today.”
By mid-May he had recovered well enough to go on a cruise. Daphne said her husband never talked about death: “He wasn't for dying. We had holidays. The doctors never said to him, 'This is a death sentence.' They talked about, 'Do you want to do the chemotherapy?' And he said, 'Yes.' And they never talked about timescale. David and I never talked about timescale. I don't know what was in his mind or what he thought. But the chemotherapy was actually starting, and they had reduced the size of the tumour.”
Around late 2021, Queen's University Belfast — with which Trimble had a long and difficult association even though he had become one of its most distinguished graduates — worked on plans to honour the former First Minister.
The university had left it very late, and just got there in time. An event was planned for autumn 2022 to unveil a Colin Davidson portrait of Trimble which the university had commissioned. As Trimble grew more frail, that had to be brought forward to June 27.
Trimble had four requests of Queen's — that his friend and former adviser, the historian Lord Bew, give the inaugural David Trimble Lecture; that Arlene Foster be invited to the lecture and accompanying dinner; that the Good Friday Agreement talks participants be invited, and that he had to sign off on the guest list.
It was typical Trimble: Lawyerly precision alongside elements of both the expected and the surprising.
When that night arrived in June, it was obvious to all present that Trimble was seriously unwell.
Bertie Ahern
Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who'd worked more closely with Trimble than any of his predecessors or successors have worked with any other leader of unionism, addressed the event, speaking warmly of the unionist leader without whom there would have been no Good Friday Agreement.
In an interview with Walker, Ahern recalled a private final conversation he had with Trimble that night: “I said, 'David, you've given your life, a good part of your life, to politics. You showed huge leadership, huge strength. We wouldn't have been able to bring peace to Northern Ireland and bring peace to the island without you, and whatever about the ups and downs that we all have in politics, you showed really outstanding leadership.'
“He wasn't able to respond or talk much at that stage, but he really appreciated it, and I was delighted to be able to do that. He told me straight that day — not that I didn't know, because I was told to come — but he told me straight he had cancer, and he was gone.
“I thanked him for his friendship over the years and he thanked me for sticking with him. It was kind of sad, but it was nice at the same time.”
Even as Trimble's body grew weaker, there was emotional healing — with Queen's and with Foster.
As Trimble had requested, the ex-DUP leader Baroness Foster was invited to the event, which she told Walker, “was most gracious of him”.
Foster — who in the preceding years had found herself on the same side as Trimble in the anti-Irish Sea border campaign — has spoken warmly about Trimble on several occasions over recent years, emphasising that, while she still opposes the totality of the 1998 Agreement, she recognises that it contained considerable benefits for unionism.
Nicholas Trimble said that the university's effort to honour his father was significant: “I think that healed an old sore for him.”
It would be the last time the former First Minister would be seen in public.
Weeks later, Trimble was admitted to hospital. He was upbeat, believing the stay to be temporary.
Daphne recalled: “On the day that he died, we had decided on a cruise in the Med for December. So, he had no notion of dying, but he had an infection, and they just couldn't get antibiotics strong enough to kill the infection.”
Richard said his dad was convinced that he was going to recover: “His mindset was definitely not 'I am about to die.'
“He was very much 'I've been in hospital and I'm going to come out again.'”
Shortly before Trimble's death, another former nationalist leader, Mark Durkan, visited him in his Lisburn home.
Talking about their time at the helm of the Stormont Executive, the former deputy First Minister jokingly referred to Trimble's ability to cling on at repeated Ulster Unionist Council meetings when the future of the Agreement lay in a handful of votes.
Durkan recalled that after he'd said this, the frail man before him wanted to convey something profound.
“He went off into some pensive distance somewhere and I just thought, 'He's thinking about that series of pressurised tightropes he walked in that period [as he struggled to keep the UUP behind the Agreement].' Because he just stared.
“He seemed to be just lost in a bit of deep thought. And then he just spoke, and he didn't look at me fully when he was speaking. He just said, 'All those hundreds of ordinary unionists showed judgment and took risks, and nobody else has really given them credit for it.'
“And he turned round, and he looked at me, and the eyes widened, and the eyebrows raised, and that was his way of [saying] 'take that point'.”
It was a moment of self-deprecating humility. Durkan had been joking with him about how his repeated survival — a remarkable feat of political skill. But rather than bask in past personal glories, Trimble was thinking about where real power had lain — with that far greater mass of unionist people who'd allowed him to do what he did, taking risks to do so, but who didn't get the accolades which descended upon his head.
There would be a final chance for the Trimbles — who despite David's title in later life were from a modest background — to make a small point about how ordinary people should be treated.
As plans were put in place for the attendance at the funeral, a representative of Boris Johnson's Government requested special treatment for high-ranking politicians, Walker reveals.
The Trimble family said no. Richard told Walker: “They wanted to have a separate room afterwards for all the dignitaries. And I said, 'This is a Presbyterian Church. You can be in the church hall with everyone else'.
Daphne said of the request for senior figures to be given their own private space: “We weren't going to have the Prime Minister stuck in a wee room when people would have wanted to see him, so we said no to that. It is not us. It is not what we would have wanted. Everybody is there to take part in the funeral and treat everybody the same.”
David Trimble: Peacemaker is published by Gill Books on Thursday
Decision time for Mary Lou... get it wrong and her career may be over
Suzanne Breen, Sunday Life, September 7th, 2025
Sinn Fein's dominance in Northern Ireland elections makes it the envy of all its rivals.
In the past three years, it has notched up a hat-trick of victories in every political arena to become the biggest local party. It's not even been close.
The Shinners romped home eight percentage points ahead of the second-placed DUP in Assembly and council elections, and were five points in front in last year's Westminster contest.
Across the border, it's a very different story. The electoral triumph the party has longed for has continued to elude it.
An Irish presidential run by Mary Lou McDonald appeals to some who don't want to see their party standing on the sidelines while Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are in the game, and she is undoubtedly Sinn Fein's strongest player.
Yet the stakes are far higher for her than for either of the government party candidates. Heather Humphreys retired from the Dail last year, and former Dublin GAA football boss Jim Gavin — the likely Fianna Fail candidate — has never had a political career to lose.
It's difficult to see McDonald being able to remain as Sinn Fein president and leader of the Opposition if she didn't win on October 24.
If she couldn't secure an office which has traditionally been a retirement home for former politicians, it would be hard for her to make a case to voters that she could lead the next government.
It would be a second failure in a year. While unpopular incumbents were booted out of office in the US and UK, there was no change of government in Dublin last November.
On 19 per cent, Sinn Fein didn't even win the popular vote: Fianna Fail (22 per cent) and Fine Gael (21 per cent) finished ahead of it. McDonald had for years been described as a taoiseach-in-waiting.
To then fail to secure the presidency would be disastrous for her. If she came a strong second in a photo-finish Aras race, she could probably survive in her party and Dail roles, but anything less would surely mean curtains.
Earlier this year, McDonald was categorical in insisting she wouldn't be a presidential candidate.
“It won't be me,” she said. “I want Sinn Fein to be in government in Dublin. I still believe we can achieve that... and all of my energy and my effort is towards achieving that.”
That line changed considerably as the party procrastinated on its presidential plans. Last week, McDonald said the party had “gone through a fairly painstaking process” that was drawing to an end.
Proposal
Its parliamentary team will meet tomorrow in “the final round of consultation”, and the “wider conversation” will conclude with a proposal going before the Ard Comhairle.
The more Sinn Fein has dilly-dallied, the more observers believe it is unlikely to back independent TD Catherine Connolly.
Building a left-leaning coalition with Labour, the Social Democrats and People Before Profit would make sense on many levels. On Gaza, Irish neutrality and other issues, Connolly has long been a consistently principled voice. With Sinn Fein's backing, her chances would be enhanced.
Yet some in the party are reluctant to sit the election out, while the Galway West TD is too left-wing for others. Sinn Fein is much more ideologically fluid than she is.
Bookmaker Paddy Power has Gavin at evens, and Humphreys as 2-1 second favourite, but McDonald couldn't be written off if she runs.
She's a formidable campaigner who connects with people on the ground. She's also a highly accomplished performer: the TV debates would hold no fear for her.
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are unlikely to throw any significant punches at each other during the campaign, and there will likely be a strong transfer rate between their voters.
Yet presidential campaigns can be unpredictable. Gavin is entering a field in which he is completely untested — some wonder if he could prove wooden.
Humphreys exudes warmth, but she could be exposed on the issues when it comes to the debates. If Sinn Fein stands, Connolly's chances are surely doomed.
'I'm no hypocrite' says DUP MLA about bid to evict asylum seekers from hotel
JOHN TONER, Sunday Life, September 7th, 2025
A DUP Assemblyman who has been caught up in planning controversies is citing planning legislation as grounds for the removal of asylum seekers at a hotel.
But when Sunday Life caught up with Trevor Clarke on Thursday afternoon, he insisted: “I'm no hypocrite”.
The MLA built a huge triple garage on his estate without prior permission, while his wife Linda was recently suspended as a local councillor over her involvement in planning decisions which he lobbied on.
Mr Clarke is now pushing to have refugees removed from the Chimney Corner Hotel in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, using planning legislation.
The hotel has been the subject of several anti-immigration protests recently following months of race riots in Northern Ireland and across the UK.
Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council launched an investigation into the hotel last month after Mr Clarke wrote a letter to the head of planning enforcement asking if they had followed proper planning laws.
“There's no hypocrisy, I reject that,” he told Sunday Life.
“No one should be above the law, everyone is subject to the law, as I was,” he continued.
“My wife was suspended for not declaring an interest and I was required to make a retrospective planning application (for the garage), the same opportunities which are open to everyone else.
“People went looking for issues, a journalist can make an irony out of anything if they wish.
“I was investigated and there was planning legislation I was in breach of, I then regularised my planning application.
Breach
“If the hotel wants to make an application to do the same then they can do that, as I did.”
Linda Clarke, of Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council, was investigated by the Northern Ireland Local Government Commissioner for Standards earlier this year.
In July it found she failed to declare her interests for council planning decisions on which her husband was making representations via his planning consultancy firm.
Mrs Clarke is a DUP councillor for the Dunsilly area and works in her husband's constituency office in South Antrim.
As he left a meeting of the Policing Board, which he sits on, Mr Clarke said his consultancy firm was entirely above board and sought to explain the situation around his triple garage, plans for which also included a gym, office space, a printing business and a bowling mat.
He continued: “I wasn't found in any breach for my planning consultancy business, the media made a controversy out of it. I was never investigated over it.
“My wife is suspended for not declaring an interest where I represented a constituent of mine, a neighbour who had asked me to speak in his favour.
“The council turned that application down and there is no record of how my wife voted, in favour or otherwise, the application was refused regardless.
“Even if she had have voted, it wouldn't have carried any weight, that application subsequently went on to the appeals commission and it was approved.
“There is an argument about whether or not you need planning permission for a garage or whether it is a permitted development, I was asked to regularise it because there was so much interest in it.
“I retrospectively put in an application to a different council than the area I represent, it was assessed and approved. My wife and I had no hand in that whatsoever.”
Mrs Clarke apologised to the NI Local Government Commissioner for Standards in August after breaching three sections of the councillors' code of conduct relating to declaring interests.
Regret
A hearing was told she sat on Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council's planning committee in May 2017 when her husband made representations on two applications.
She had earlier received guidance from the council's lawyer advising of a possible conflict of interest.
She expressed “regret” over not declaring her “dual conflict of interest” in the planning applications and withdrawing from the council meeting. Despite this the watchdog found she “did not display insight into her actions” and did not accept her conflict of interest “until very recently”.
The commissioner said Mrs Clarke had “no previous history” of breaching the code and had self-referred to the watchdog following media reports.
In 2023, another DUP councillor who worked in Mr Clarke's constituency office was suspended from the council's planning committee for three months in similar circumstances.
The standards watchdog found John Smyth breached the code of conduct by not declaring an interest when Mr Clarke made representations to the committee.
In 2021 Mr Clarke apologised for not declaring to a constituent who was opposing a planning application, that he was lobbying for the plans through a sideline consultancy business.
The apology followed a complaint made to the Northern Ireland Assembly's standards commissioner.
UVF KILLER 'shades' IN THE frame
JOHN TONER, Sunday Life, September 7th, 2025
LOYALIST HITMAN CENTRAL TO COUPLE'S MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE CAMPAIGN ALL SMILES IN OUR PICTURES AS HE GETS HITCHED TO HIS CATHOLIC BRIDE, BUT CLAIMS OF A STITCH-UP PERSIST OVER SOLDIER CONVICTED OF 1983 MURDER
An ex-soldier who claims he was wrongly convicted of a sectarian murder has launched a bid to raise £10,000 for an appeal as a loyalist suspected of the killing enjoyed a lavish wedding.
Neil Latimer, who served 15 years behind bars for the killing of Adrian Carroll, is one of four men jailed for murder in 1983 who became known as the UDR Four.
Noel Bell, James Hagan and Winston Allen had their convictions overturned after a high-profile appeal. Despite three attempts to clear his name, Latimer's conviction has stood.
All the while, a loyalist hitman named James 'Jimmy Shades' Smyth suspected of the crime has been enjoying his freedom, getting married last month.
Neil's wife Jill has long campaigned for her husband's case to be reviewed.
Speaking to Sunday Life with the ex-soldier at her side, she said: “We set up the fundraiser because Neil's case is one of the top three miscarriages of justice in Northern Ireland, yet it is the least popular.
“We feel that if we were from the nationalist part of the community, there would be lots of funding and interest from politicians and so on.
“If he was from the other side, he'd have funding in place and donations to pay for legal costs, but we don't have that and there is no legal aid available, so we have to raise the money ourselves.
Corruption
“Due to the fact Neil is from the Protestant side of the community, and because of the collusion and corruption in the case, the authorities don't want the truth coming out.
“It (the corruption) goes from the old RUC to Special Branch, right up to government level.
“The Protestant Action Force (a cover name for the UVF) initially accepted responsibility, and have confirmed Neil's innocence in the past.
“But their job is apparently to protect their men at all costs. Well, my job is to clear Neil's name at all costs.”
In 2024, James Smyth was cleared of the 1994 UVF building site killings of Catholic friends Eamon Fox and Gary Convie.
The loyalist's trial heard evidence from UVF supergrass Gary Haggarty, who named him as the gunman.
Following the acquittal, this newspaper revealed how Smyth had been linked to three other murders: Adrian Carroll in Armagh in 1983, Gerard Brady in Carrickfergus in 1994, and Cormac McDermott in Ballymena the same year.
Smyth was convicted of the McDermott killing and sentenced to life imprisonment but freed early in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
His links to the Carroll murder have been an open secret in loyalist and security circles for more than 40 years, but he has never faced prosecution.
Neil Latimer previously said Smyth has been identified to him as the gunman “many times over the years”.
Despite this and a previous call for Smyth to come clean, Jill said there was no longer a desire on their part for the hitman to search his conscience. She added: “We never put his name forward, it was already in the public domain right from the start.
“We don't want to comment on Mr Smyth. People know the story, and if the dogs in the street know it, why didn't the RUC deal with it properly at the time?
“We don't want anything to do with him at all. Why should we beg or ask him to come forward with information? He's had ample opportunity.
“There is another suspect involved in this as well. If they are happy to let Neil serve 15 years and continue on with their lives, should they not be ashamed someone else did their time for them?
“It's not for us to ask them to come forward. The police should have investigated it properly in the first place.”
Shocks
Loyalist sources said Smyth, who was only 17 at the time of the Adrian Carroll murder, was driven along back roads from Belfast to Armagh city by a UVF member from Poyntzpass who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The victim was shot dead as he walked through an alley off Abbey Street by a gunman wearing glasses and a flat cap.
James Smyth was given his 'Jimmy Shades' nickname because of his poor eyesight and reliance on spectacles.
Despite their frustration and years of setbacks, the Latimers continue to fight to clear Neil's name in the face of daunting odds and ongoing difficulties caused by his conviction.
Jill said: “We initially set up a GoFundMe page, but it got shut down due to Neil's conviction, so we had to go to Crowdfunder instead.
“We have a book coming out too which had some similar issues with a publisher, so we are self-publishing it.
“That will have some shocks in it for a lot of people.
“Owen Beattie Solicitors have done a very good job helping us.
“We need to raise about £10,000 to go for a fourth appeal.
“The whole process is very frustrating, but it shows you the lengths the government will go to keep this shut down.
“We've had numerous death threats over the years. Nothing is done about it because they either come from within MI5 or the republican community.
“Anything that happens to us doesn't matter. Our politicians have been told to not let this case see the light of day. A senior politician confirmed that to us.
“We want to get the best barrister we can who is not from Northern Ireland because there is so much corruption involved it's hard to know who to trust.
“It's been 42 years. Anyone who was guilty of this crime would have just got on with their life, but Neil hasn't done that because your name is all you come into the world with and all you leave with. It's an ongoing battle against the establishment.”
James Smyth, who a judge said “murdered Catholics for being Catholic”, got married to a Catholic woman in a lavish ceremony at the Dunsilly Hotel in Antrim last month.
After the ceremony, they posed for pictures in the grounds of Antrim Castle Gardens.
One of our most troubling murders still haunts me
Ivan Little, Sunday Life, September 7th, 2025
I could never have imagined as I reported on the harrowing child murder of Brian McDermott in 1973 that the police would be revisiting it 52 years later.
But last week the PSNI issued the latest in a long line of appeals for information about the 10-year-old boy's killing which, over the last decades, has been linked to a paedophile ring, loyalist paramilitaries, members of the British establishment, witchcraft and even to his own brother.
Dismembered
On Saturday, September 8, 1973, in an interview with me, Brian's Scots-born mother Joan said he hadn't been seen since leaving his home in Well Street after going to a playground in nearby Ormeau Park and she told me that he wasn't the sort of boy to run away.
Her worst fears were realised shortly afterwards when Brian's dismembered body was found in a hessian sack in the River Lagan.
Over the next week, I wrote a number of articles for the Belfast Telegraph about the panic in the Woodstock/Ravenhill areas as mothers called for more protection for their children.
Their concerns about a sick serial killer on the loose were heightened by revelations about the mutilation of Brian's badly burnt body which had had both legs and an arm hacked off.
I called it “the most horrific murder Ulster has ever known”.
One of the most sensational twists came when it was revealed that Brian's brother Billy, who was 16 at the time of the murder, had been considered a suspect and was questioned about the killing in 2004.
He admitted that he had confessed to the murder in 1976 but claimed that the confession was fabricated by police.
All the while there were always whispers, rumours and claims that the killing may have been linked to the sex abuse scandal at Kincora Boys' Home also in east Belfast.
There've been books and documentaries, one of which, Lost Boys: Belfast's Missing Children in 2023, produced evidence that the programme makers claimed proved that violent paedophiles, protected by British intelligence, had been mired in the murder of Brian McDermott and the disappearance of four other boys who have never been found.
HORRORS
A new book by my former UTV colleague Chris Moore is called Kincora: Britain's Shame, and examines the horrors there.
He and I were both in Belfast Crown Court to see three men — William McGrath, Raymond Semple and Joe Mains — sentenced for their parts in the abuse of children at the home.
The detective in charge of the investigation, George Caskey, told us that guilty pleas had stopped the full story of the Kincora horror coming out and from that day on Chris has been relentless in his quest for the truth.
Lord Mounbatten has long been accused as belonging to the paedophile ring which also included a monster I knew.
John McKeague, who was to form the murderous Red Hand Commando, was a relative of a school friend and I turned down his offer of a summer job in his Portrush guesthouse and gave him the same short shrift in my trainee journalist days when he asked me to write for his hate sheet, the Loyalist News.
UDA boss sweating after guns seized in PSNI raids
SUNDAY LIFE REPORTER, September 7th, 2025
CARRICK LOYALIST 'SPACER' DENIES FIREARMS CHARGES
Leading loyalist William 'Spacer' Cameron is sweating over a possible jail sentence after he was charged with possessing a firearms cache.
Identified by loyalist sources as the acting South East Antrim (SEA) UDA boss in Carrickfergus, the 59-year-old was in court last week, with his case set to go to the crown court. He is accused of possessing five weapons without certificates including an 18mm rifle converted to fire shotgun cartridges, three imitation rifles and a Second World War flare gun.
Cameron, who denies any wrongdoing, was charged following April 2023 raids on a property in the Castlemara area of Carrickfergus by the Paramilitary Crime Task Force.
Confidante
The PSNI said the searches were related to “suspected criminality linked to the South East Antrim UDA”.
According to loyalists, Cameron is the de facto leader of the terror gang in Carrickfergus and has been since former 'commander' Clifford 'Trigger' Irons, was charged with cocaine dealing, which he denies.
Irons, who was named in court as a UDA boss, moved to the nearby village of Greenisland, where he has been keeping a low profile.
“Spacer has been running the UDA, or what's left of it, in Carrick, since Trigger was charged with drug dealing,” a SEA UDA source told Sunday Life.
“The organisation is barely active in Carrick now, even though it was once one of its strongholds.”
Loyalists say the 2020 murder of terminally-ill Glenn Quinn by UDA members in Carrickfergus finished the gang locally.
“The UDA has never recovered from Glenn Quinn's murder, and then a short time after he was killed, Trigger was lifted for drug dealing. It was then that Spacer was put in charge,” added our source.
“Spacer was very vocal in condemning the UDA members who killed Glenn Quinn. He called them 'useless b******s'.”
Spacer Cameron is a trusted confidant of the SEA UDA's Rathcoole leadership and was pictured with them by Sunday Life at a loyalist commemoration several years ago.
He was seen chatting to the crime gang's boss Gary Fisher and veteran UDA man Tommy Kirkham, who acts as the organisation's political advisor.
Our source said: “They see Spacer as a safe pair of hands, and that's why he was put in control of Carrick when Trigger was charged with drug dealing.”
Cameron has been a prominent loyalist for more than 25 years and first came to public attention in 2003 when the SEA UDA broke off from the mainstream UDA and was involved in clashes in Carrickfergus.
While a member of a local police liaison committee, he was convicted of possessing a dozen bullets which he claimed to have found in a skip, being handed a two-year jail sentence, suspended for one year.
Punishment
In 2015, he was the victim of a punishment-style shooting by the SEA UDA following an internal row.
He was abducted by three men close to the Castlemara shops, taken up an alley and blasted once in the leg.
Following the April 2023 Paramilitary Crime Task Force raids which led to Spacer Cameron being charged with possessing firearms without a certificate, the PSNI said: “As part of an investigation into suspected criminality linked to the South East Antrim UDA, we conducted proactive searches in the Castlemara area.
“The searches and seizures are a demonstration of the taskforce's commitment to tackle all types of organised criminality linked to paramilitaries, in an ongoing effort to rid our communities of the harm these groups cause and of their coercive control.”
Ofcom contacted after crowd's pro-IRA chanting heard on TV broadcast of Conlan-Bateson fight
ADRIAN RUTHERFORD, Sunday Life, September 7th, 2025
TUV COUNCILLOR COMPLAINS OVER CONLAN FIGHT
A TUV councillor has written to the broadcast regulator after pro-IRA crowd chanting was aired in TV coverage of the Michael Conlan fight in Dublin on Friday night.
The Belfast boxer beat Jack Bateson at the 3Arena in a bout that was televised by Channel 5.
The 33-year-old stopped his opponent with 10 seconds remaining in the fourth round to claim the vacant WBC International featherweight title.
However, as the programme wrapped up, some of the crowd was heard chanting “Up the 'Ra” in the background.
TUV councillor Christopher Jamieson said he had lodged a formal complaint with Ofcom, citing criticism the BBC received after broadcasting a controversial set at Glastonbury earlier this year.
His letter states: “After the conclusion of the fight the crowd loudly and repeatedly chanted 'Up the 'Ra', an explicit glorification of the Provisional IRA.
“This chant was clearly audible to viewers and was carried live and unchallenged by Channel 5.
“The IRA was responsible for a 30 year campaign of terrorism which claimed the lives of men, women and children across the United Kingdom.
“For a national UK broadcaster to beam such chanting into homes without challenge is profoundly offensive to the many innocent victims of IRA violence, as well as to the wider public who rightly expect adherence to broadcasting standards.”
The chanting happened in the final stages of the two and a half hour broadcast.
As the pundits discussed Conlan's win, a camera panned across the crowd as some fans joined along in the Wolfe Tones' Celtic Symphony.
Offence
It lingered as some joined in the “Up the 'Ra” chant.
Section three of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code states that broadcasters have a duty to ensure that material likely to incite or glorify violence, or which may cause offence, is appropriately handled.
Mr Jamieson said: “It is my contention that Channel 5 failed in this duty by transmitting this chant without editorial control, warning, or condemnation.”
He cited controversy involving the BBC in June, when it broadcast a Glastonbury performance by Bob Vylan in which the crowd was led in chanting “Death, death to the IDF” — a reference to the Israeli Defence Forces.
The BBC later admitted it should have pulled the livestream sooner and apologised.
Mr Jamieson asked Ofcom to investigate Channel 5's broadcast, clarify what steps the broadcaster took to prevent or mitigate the broadcast of the chant, and ensure that appropriate sanctions and guidance are applied to prevent a repeat.
“If Ofcom and Channel 5 are prepared to act swiftly in cases such as Glastonbury, there can be no excuse for failing to act here,” he said.
Channel 5 was contacted for comment.
Paedo ex-Sinn Fein press officer Michael McMonagle spotted in park at kids' fair
CIARAN BARNES, Sunday Life, September 7th, 2025
Paedophile ex-Sinn Fein press officer Michael McMonagle was reported to the PSNI for allegedly leering at kids in a Belfast park during a family fun day.
But police say he has not broken any laws despite being subject to a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) that bars him having any “access, association, contact or communication with young persons under 16 save for everyday inadvertent and unavoidable contact”.
McMonagle (43) was spotted sitting on a bench in Botanic Gardens last Sunday near a children's bouncy castle while a widely advertised multi-cultural family summer festival went on around him.
A PSNI spokeswoman said: “A report was made to police concerning a potential breach of a SOPO on Sunday evening, August 31.
“Following investigation, it was determined that on this occasion the circumstances of the report made to police did not breach this order.
“Police take all reports of alleged breaches of a SOPO seriously. If a report is received by police concerning the suspected breach of a SOPO, it is investigated thoroughly and in line with the legislation.”
However, the PSNI response failed to impress the concerned father who reported McMonagle. He told Sunday Life: “McMonagle was sitting leering on a bench while the place was teeming with kids.
“I'd have thought since he's just been out of jail for (child sexual abuse) offences he'd be banned from parks, especially when there's a family fun day on.
“But he was sitting there as brazen as you like 20ft away from a bouncy castle and fun fair, so I reported it to the police and got a crime reference number.”
Freed
When told that the PSNI is not treating McMonagle's presence at the family fun day as a SOPO breach, the father said he would be making a complaint to the Police Ombudsman.
He added: “I'll be going to the Ombudsman. There were signs up in Botanic advertising the family fun day, bouncy castles, amusements. As soon as McMonagle saw all that he should have turned around and walked out of the park instead of planting himself on a bench.”
McMonagle served nine months in prison for 14 child sexual abuse offences before being freed in August. He is currently living in hostel accommodation close to Queen's University.
Two weeks ago the Belfast Telegraph pictured him hauling a suitcase and large bag past the Laganside court complex in the city centre. It is understood he was in the process of moving to his new whereabouts.
McMonagle had intended to return to his native Derry city but threats from the New IRA, which mistakenly pipe-bombed a neighbour's house in the Bogside area instead of his, put paid to these plans.
Although a free man McMonagle will spend the next nine months on licence, meaning he can be returned to prison for that period if the authorities suspect he has committed any further sex offences.
The predator was first arrested in August 2021 following a PSNI undercover sting operation which showed he had spent the previous 15 months sending explicit sexual messages to what he thought were children, but were in fact police decoys.
Indecent
Among his victims were 'Amber', who he thought was a 12-year-old girl, and who he ordered to masturbate and send indecent images of herself to him.
He also contacted what he thought were young schoolboys, and sent an image of the lower half of his body dressed only in boxer shorts.
At the time McMonagle was a Sinn Fein press officer, having previously worked as a party advisor and before that a journalist.
After his suspension from Sinn Féin following his August 2021 arrest, McMonagle secured job references from former press office colleagues Séan Mag Uidhir and Caolán McGinley. Both later resigned from their positions within the party.
When he was sentenced last November, it was revealed McMonagle attempted to take his own life twice ahead of being jailed.
After he was caged for nine months, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said “justice has been served”. She added: “I voice my appreciation to the system that has brought McMonagle to book and he will now be behind bars.”
PSNI Chief Superintendent Lindsay Fisher described McMonagle as a “predator who was combing the internet for underage victims”.
As well as being subject to a 10-year Sopo, the paedophile is on the sex offenders register for seven years, and is banned from working with children and vulnerable adults.
History, heritage matter
Ivan Little, Sunday Life, September 7th, 2025
Great news that Belfast City Council is to buy the decaying Assembly Rooms in the centre of Belfast.
The rich history of the architectural gem of a building ranges from the rejection of moves at a meeting in 1786 to establish a slave trading company here; to the Belfast Harp Festival in 1792; to the court martial of the leaders of the 1798 rebellion.
But for me its history will always be associated with the history-making first run of the play, The History of the Troubles (accordin' to my Da).
I don't know what plans the council have for the building but a memorial to the real troubled history of this sorry place wouldn't go
amiss.
