Brenda Hale | |
Honorific-Suffix: | OBE |
Constituency Am: | Lagan Valley |
Assembly: | Northern Ireland |
Term Start: | 5 May 2011 |
Term End: | 30 January 2017 |
Predecessor: | Paul Butler |
Successor: | Pat Catney |
Birth Date: | 1968 1, df=yes |
Birth Place: | Bangor, Northern Ireland |
Nationality: | British |
Party: | Democratic Unionist Party |
Spouse: | Mark Hale (died 2009, KIA) |
Children: | 2Victoria Alexandra |
Brenda Hale, OBE, (born 29 January 1968) is a Unionist politician from Northern Ireland representing the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). She sat in the Northern Ireland Assembly as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Lagan Valley from 2011[1] until her narrow defeat at the 2017 Assembly election.
Hale's husband served with the British Army and was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. Hale then started to speak to the Ministry of Defence on behalf of other war widows.[2] As of August 2015, she is a Political Member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board.[3]
Her book, I Married A Soldier,[4] was published in 2017. It details Hale's family life with her husband and daughters leading to her entry into Northern Irish politics.
Hale was honoured in the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours list and was appointed an OBE for political service.[5]