Kate Nicholl

Kate Nicholl is a Zimbabwean born Irish politician and a member of the Alliance Party.

In May 2021, Nicholl succeeded the DUP's Frank McCoubrey as lord mayor of Belfast.

Background

Kate Nicholl grew up in Marondera, Zimbabwe, but when violence broke out in 2000, her family left the country and moved to Belfast in Ireland. She moved to Ireland when she was 12.

Her mother is from South Africa, while her father is from County Down, in Northern Ireland.

Nicholl's parents moved to Zimbabwe in 1982 because they wanted to raise their children in a country that didn't have the division and the segregation of Northern Ireland, but also of South Africa where her mum had been raised.^[1]

Children

She has a son named Clan.^[1]

Education

Nicholl went to Methodist College in Belfast.^[1]

Career

She developed an interest in politics and worked as a researcher for former Alliance Party MLA Anna Lo.

Nicholl works in marketing. At Belfast City Council, she is one of the representatives for the Balmoral area, in the south of the city.

Kate Nicholl became the sixth member of the cross-community Alliance Party to become Belfast lord mayor at a meeting of the council on 1 June.^[1] Only one previous Belfast lord mayor was born outside of the UK and Ireland - Sir Otto Jaffe, who held the office between 1899-1900 and was born in Hamburg, Germany.^[2]