St Patrick’s Day and Northern Irish Affairs

Debate between Adam Jogee and Karen Bradley

Thursday 27th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered St Patrick’s day 2025 and Northern Irish affairs.

I am grateful to all colleagues who sponsored the debate application and to the Backbench Business Committee for granting us time on the Floor of the Chamber. The cross-party support for the debate is testament to the close bond between the UK and Ireland and the House’s acknowledgment of Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.

I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I serve on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, ably chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), and I am particularly grateful to the team of Stephen, Kay, Karen, Joe and Chloe who support the Committee’s work—they are all excellent people. I also chair the all-party parliamentary group on Ireland and the Irish in Britain.

The issues before the House this afternoon are close to my heart. As anyone who knows me will say, I have always had a great love and affinity for the good people of Northern Ireland, and indeed the Republic of Ireland, as well as what could be described as a healthy appreciation for St Patrick’s day this year and all years.

We are joined in the Gallery by former deputy mayor Councillor Liz McShane, a councillor in Folkestone and Hythe and a North Down native. We were to be joined by Mr Michael Lonergan, the political supremo at the Irish embassy, but, alas, I think he is lunching. Michael has done more for British-Irish relations in recent years than anyone else I know. We will miss him when he returns home later this year. I have not met anybody who can so easily have breakfast with the DUP, morning tea with Sinn Féin, lunch with the Liberals, afternoon tea with the Tories, pre-dinner drinks with the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists, and then dinner with Labour, and then get up and do it all again the next day.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman—my almost neighbour—on securing the debate. I apologise, as I cannot contribute fully to this debate as I have to go and prepare for the next debate, but I want to join him in his tributes to Michael. I have just seen Michael in Portcullis House, so I know that he is in the building, and I am sure that he will be in the Gallery at some point soon. He has been an absolute stalwart. As vice-chair of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly and previously its co-chair, I know just how much work Michael does to promote UK-Irish relations. We will miss him very much.

[Adam Jogee]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who is a near neighbour and a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, both for her interest in and commitment to Northern Irish affairs and for her full and appropriate tribute to Michael. I thank her for making it.

For nations across the globe, St Patrick’s day is a day of celebration, acknowledgment and togetherness, and a day—it rather feels like a month nowadays—when the world can be described in two ways: those who are Irish and Northern Irish, and those who wished they were. The noble Lord, Lord Brennan, a man born to an Irish father and a Welsh mother, told me last night that as St David’s day is 1 March, he was not prepared to concede a month to celebrate St Patrick’s day unless it started around 8 March. I told him that as long as St George’s day is safe in April, I was happy to let the debate go on.

St Patrick’s day’s global popularity is perhaps most obvious in the city of Chicago, which famously dyes its river green every year to mark this important milestone. While I appreciate the sentiment, I am sure that we have all had enough of the rivers and lakes in our country—whether the Thames outside this place or Lough Neagh—turning the most unusual of colours.

Much of this is closer to home. I am proud of my own family roots in Northern Ireland. My late grandmother’s father was of good, solid County Down stock. I note the passing of his last remaining child, my great-aunt Margaret Wilson, who died at the grand old age of 105 last week. The blend of Irish and English is clearly a recipe for a good, long life.

My own roots parked to one side, one of the best decisions I ever made—other than being born to a good Staffordshire woman in my mother, over which I had little influence—was to marry my brilliant, wonderful wife. I had little influence in that, either—she had to say yes. My wife is a woman of and from Northern Ireland but who calls the ancient and loyal borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme home.