A Protestant millennial from North Belfast, educated in a state secondary school, brought up through a soft unionist family, a supporter, member and staffer for the SDLP, and a believer in a functional Northern Ireland and an advocate for a future ‘new and agreed’ Ireland.

My Dad came from Ligoniel in North Belfast – when it used to be predominately Protestant – and my Mum was born off the Woodstock Road in East Belfast, later growing up in Rathcoole, a Protestant estate on the outskirts of Belfast. My Dad would recall stories of pushing his sofa across his front door worried that a man in his twenties could easily become the victim of mistaken identity in paramilitary attacks after his neighbour was shot by the IRA. My Mum would too recall a story when local loyalist paramilitaries tried to intimidate them from their home when they first moved to Rathcoole, as the house was wanted for someone else. Terrorism from without and from within.

Through Sunday School I grew up understanding that Catholicism must be inherently wrong and that Protestantism alone was Christianity. As a child I would walk hand in hand with my uncle along the Lisburn Road on the 12th of July with an orange collarette that reached past by knees. My parents were robbed blind by my incessant want for every new Rangers FC top that came out each season, and despite having little understanding of politics throughout school, a few friends and I would disrupt our GCSE Geography class with chants of, “one, two, three, vote for DUP… wee Nigel Dodds he’s in it for the Prods.”

As a child growing up in a primary school across the road from Holy Cross Girls in the early 2000s, I remember understanding that there was something inherently wrong that girls like me couldn’t walk to school a certain way. Likewise, I was totally perplexed to be called a ‘dirty hun’ when I went shopping with my mum in Yorkgate (now CitySide shopping centre) in one of my infamous Rangers FC tops. And I could never shift the feeling when I used to collect my friend (who lived off the Springfield road) for football training, that it felt a world apart from the Protestant arterial routes I was used to. I knew too well that something about this compartmentalised way of living was totally past its sell by date.

My first time voting my mum let me into a secret that she “didn’t just vote for Prods you know.” Things began to shift when I went to University: though my parents always taught me we were all equal, it doesn’t really sink in until you’re surrounded by all creeds and classes. In addition to that, I lived in a chaplaincy environment where Protestantism wasn’t simply unionism by association, and became part of a church that angled itself towards an all-island context as opposed to the inextricable links with the Union that some Protestant denominations hold tightly to.

The idea of a reconciled Ireland built on the premise of justice and co-operation was one I wasn’t going to let pass me by in an instant. Though toying with the idea of joining Alliance when I was at Queen’s, fearing that the SDLP would be too far for some family relations, I thought to myself, “Sure, in for a penny in for a pound,” and lo and behold I have found a political home. One where I genuinely hope to bring the tenets of the SDLP into my own community where it isn’t already.

Choosing a political party outside of your designated background should never be viewed as an overwhelming betrayal to your own background, nor should it be understated by those you are walking towards. The recurring questions at family events or friends of my parents asking, “Why do you work for the SDLP?” got old fast. I’ve become one of those people who doesn’t fit nicely into a box, and I can see it frustrates the flip out of some people. That said, I am not the exception, I meet people regularly that vote in ways I didn’t expect and/or are members of parties I didn’t expect, you just can’t hear them over the banging of the drum or see them past all the flags. 

I am under no illusion that for some segments of Nationalism that I will never be overtly green enough. I will always be a Northern Ireland football fan and I will still tag along with family members to listen to the bands on the twelfth. My advice to anyone would be to choose a party on its ability to elevate others as oppose to its’ desire to stop others elevating.

It’s my hope that as we enter the month of the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, identity not be found in political preferences, but political preferences be interwoven with a vast set of identities with a common purpose to first and foremost, make life better for people who struggle to make it better for themselves.