Many questions arise from the criminal child abuse conviction of ex Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. Between 1985 and 2008 Donaldson raped and abused two courageous women who came forward in 2023.
In that 23 year period the political career of Sir Jeffrey Donaldson blossomed.
A very perceptive analyst, LouthForEver, offers useful context :
For forty years Jeffrey Donaldson was the respectable face of a certain unionism, lecturing the Irish Catholics of the six counties on law, order and godliness. He has woken in a cell, a convicted child rapist. This is the gap the column exists to read, and it has never been wider.
He spent Monday night in Maghaberry, the first of many. That afternoon a jury of seven men and five women in Newry had deliberated for ten hours and found him guilty on every one of eighteen counts, one of rape, thirteen of indecent assault, four of gross indecency, against two children, on dates running from 1985 to 2008. He showed no emotion as the foreman spoke. He wore a small Christian fish pin on the lapel of a pristine navy suit. For four weeks he had called the two women liars from the witness stand. The jury believed them, unanimously, and the judge told a silent courtroom that a long sentence was now inevitable.
Begin there, and stay there, because everything that follows is built on that floor and must never float free of it. The two women are not material for an argument. What was done to them as children is theirs, and it is not anyone’s evidence. The only thing owed them is the plain fact that they were believed. Everything else here is about the man, and the forty years of borrowed authority the verdict has demolished.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson – – ex-leader of Six county Democratic Unionist party in Ireland – found guilty of rape and all sex abuse charges
Lady Eleanor Donaldson found to have committed acts she was accused of.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson found guilty of rape and all sex abuse charges. Lady Eleanor Donaldson found to have committed acts she was accused of http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cw…
Nexus describes itself : “We are the leading organisation within Northern Ireland supporting individuals impacted by sexual abuse and abusive relationships”
NEXUS: ‘Focus on immense bravey of the victims’
Nexus CEO Joanne Barnes: “We welcome today’s guilty verdict, which marks an important step towards justice and accountability for the victims.
“For Nexus, it is important to focus on the immense bravery of the victims for remaining engaged with the criminal justice process despite the significant personal cost that this can bring.
“Often this process is not simply about reaching a verdict; it is about being heard, taken seriously, and treated with dignity. However, it is also a process that can be deeply challenging and, at times, re‑traumatising, requiring individuals to revisit profoundly distressing experiences.
“We know that the journey through the justice system can test even the strongest resolve. The courage required to report and remain engaged throughout should not be underestimated, particularly when the process can feel overwhelming or prolonged.
“It is vital that outcomes such as this contribute to building greater victim confidence in coming forward. Too often, fear, uncertainty, or previous experiences deter individuals from seeking justice.
We are mindful that today’s verdict may evoke a range of emotions for victims and survivors, including relief, validation, distress, anger, or sadness.
“At Nexus, we continue to support victims and survivors at every stage of their journey. We would strongly encourage anyone impacted by this case, or with similar experiences, to seek specialist support, which can play a crucial role in helping to navigate the impact of trauma and assist recovery.
“This case underscores the need for a justice system that is not only fair and evidence-based, but also compassionate and responsive to those who come forward. Victims and survivors deserve to be treated with dignity, respect, and understanding throughout.”
UUP leader joins calls for Donaldson to be ‘stripped of all state honours without delay’
Jon Burrows, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, has joined calls for Jeffrey Donaldson to be “stripped of all state honours without delay”, after the guilty verdict.
In a statement Mr Burrows said: “Today a jury has found Jeffrey Donaldson guilty on all charges. These are among the gravest crimes imaginable, committed against the most vulnerable by a man who spent his career demanding the public’s trust.
“I want to pay tribute to the brave women who gave evidence against Jeffrey Donaldson about the abuse he inflicted on them; they and their families are in my thoughts in the days ahead. Their ordeal has been unimaginable.
“The fact that Donaldson showed no remorse and called his victims liars is reprehensible.
“There is no rank, no title, and no past office that places anyone above the law. Jeffrey Donaldson abused his power and betrayed everyone who ever placed their faith in him. He must now be stripped of all state honours without delay: no honour of the state should remain in the hands of a man convicted of crimes of this nature.
“This is a moment for humility and for an unflinching commitment to survivors of abuse. No one is too powerful to be held to account.”
Sam McBride, belfast Telegraph, reports :
Former DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is a paedophile, a jury has unanimously found: Guilty on all 18 counts, including rape of a primary school girl. Judge says jail is "inevitable" and ex-MP immediately remanded into custody. Full breaking coverage:
Former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson’s ‘regret’ letter was not an apology, court hears
The jury in the trial of the former DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson on a series of sexual abuse charges has heard more testimony today from one of the complainants.
She described the suggestion that the abuse had never taken place as ‘insulting and patronising’.
Former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson’s ‘regret’ letter was not an apology, court hearswww.channel4.com/news/former-…
Jurors in the trial of the former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson will hear about “difficult and traumatic incidents” the two alleged victims in the case allege occurred to them as children, Newry Crown Court has heard.
The long-delayed trial of former Democratic Unionist party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and his wife Lady Eleanor Donaldson is due to start on the week beginning May 25 2026. An unusual development has occurred.
A May 20 2026 RTÉ News Report states :
A judge has ruled that the wife of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson is unfit to face a criminal trial on sexual offences charges due to the state of her mental health.
Eleanor Donaldson, aged 60, will now face what is called a “trial of facts” rather than a normal trial.
That means a jury cannot find her guilty but will be asked to determine whether she committed the offences she is charged with.
Jeffrey Donaldson, 63, will face a normal criminal trial on 18 charges which he denies.
The former DUP leader has pleaded not guilty to one count of rape, four counts of gross indecency and 13 charges of indecent assault.
Ms Donaldson has pleaded not guilty to five charges including aiding and abetting her husband.
The 23 charges relate to offences allegedly committed against two plaintiffs between 1985 and 2008.
Their trial is scheduled to begin next week.
Judge Paul Ramsey ruled that Ms Donaldson is unfit to face a normal criminal trial after hearing evidence from a consultant forensic psychiatrist and reading reports from two doctors.
Dr Christine Kennedy told the court that Ms Donaldson was found to be “severely depressed”, suicidal and suffering with “high levels of anxiety”.
She said that on the balance of probabilities Ms Donaldson would not be able to instruct her legal team, could not follow the trial proceedings and would not be able to give evidence.
The judge heard legal submissions about whether the trial of facts will be heard simultaneously with Jeffrey Donaldson’s trial or run as separate proceedings at a different time.
The Irish News columnist Patrick Murphy tells many home-truths about the Good Friday Agreement and the Stormont Assembly in Belfast.
This occurs in tandem with declining support for partition within the six-county bit of Ireland. A detonator of this trend was Brexit – the British state’s 2016 right-wing exit from the European Union.
Anti-Partition supporters of the Good Friday Agreement hope its referendum provisions will be enacted – forcing an electoral end on Ireland’s partition. These people need to address an ugly truth : an Irish unity referendum within the 6 county state can only happen with the permission of the British Secretary of State for “Northern Ireland” – an office currently held by Labour MP Hillary Benn.
Benn has categorically stated he will not authorise such a referendum. Credible opinion polls suggest that by the time of the next British general election (which must occur by 2029) the Westminster government could be controlled by the far-right ultra-Unionist Reform party led by Nigel Farage.
The best progressive way to end the partition of Ireland today can start with smashing Stormont.End institutionalised sectarianism and class collaboration – No coalition with right-wing parties such as the Democratic Unionist Party.
The way forward is :
1.Call for the formation of citizens’ assemblies which will draw up a political programme for the creation of a new 32 county Irish state
2. If the Irish state refuses to call a Citizens’ Assembly – something like the body which preceded the 2018 referendum in the 26 county bity of Ireland which repealed the anti-abortion 8th Amendment – the workers’ movement, women’s movement, trade unions, left-wing parties, and so on should take the initiative.
A number of tributes to the investigative journalist Ed Moloney are published below.
Also included is an account of how Ed published sensational evidence about the role of William Stobie (at one time a quarter-master in the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association), in the political murder of Belfast human rights lawyer Pat Finucane. The British state’s unsuccessful attempt to obtain details of the journalist’s confidential sources were defeated.
It is refreshing to read tributes about about a man I knew well that are kind, affectionate, and that do not pretend Ed was a saint.
This article was published in the September 26 2025 edition of the Irish Times.
If Northerners had a vote, Catherine Connolly would be our next president
Northerners have a vested interest in an election portrayed as seminal for the abolition of partition. But they don’t have a vote
Catherine Connolly’s presidential election campaign would be a stroll to the park if Ireland honoured all its citizens’ rights. Instead, the Independent candidate is being accused of lip service by two parties that have ensured the exclusion of hundreds of thousands of potential voters from choosing their head of state.
Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland are allowed no say in an election that is being billed as crucial to their future constitutional status. Sinn Féin insists the next president must “champion a united Ireland”. Fine Gael says its candidate, Heather Humphreys, as a Presbyterian from a Border county, would symbolically unite the island. Fianna Fáil presents its candidate, Jim Gavin, as being Border-blind due to his involvement with the all-island GAA. Yet those living in the North’s six counties are silenced in the election. Their continuing exclusion reduces them to nominal citizens.
Addressing his party’s annual conference last weekend, DUP leader Gavin Robinson rebuked the Republic for what he called its “institutional intolerance of Protestant culture and heritage” but the southern State’s starker prejudice is against its own citizens in the North. Under the 1956 Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, affirmed by the 1998 Belfast Agreement, people in Northern Ireland are entitled to choose to be citizens of Ireland. As such, the Irish President is their president. Ever since Mary Robinson’s election to the Áras in 1990, the office’s holders have striven to represent them with their presence and their utterances. But across the Liffey in Government Buildings the realpolitik means that extending voting rights to Northern citizens would be electoral hara-kiri, virtually handing Sinn Féin the presidency on a plate.
We are used to NIMBY (Not in my back-yard) racists in Ireland attacking asylum-seekers and refugees in vulnerable accommodation. This political plague is currently sweeping across the British State. An Epping Forest Judge, Mr Stephen Eyre, has political form in the six-county bit of Ireland
Judge in Epping Forest asylum hotel case ran for Tories in NI poll
Liam Tunney, Belfast Telegraph, August 22nd, 2025
A judge behind a landmark ruling on hotels accommodating asylum seekers in the UK once stood for election in Northern Ireland.
Stephen Eyre’s ruling on the legality of The Bell Hotel’s eligibility to house asylum seekers has sparked a wave of complaints to local authorities across the UK, including three councils in Northern Ireland.
The action, taken by Epping Forest District Council against Somani Hotels, alleged the group had not notified the local planning authority of a change of use for the premises.
Mr Eyre is a former election candidate for the Conservative Party, standing in Birmingham Hodge Hill in 1987, Stourbridge in 2001 and again in a 2004 by-election in Birmingham Hodge Hill.
In the 1992 General Election, he stood in Strangford as the Conservatives attempted to gain a foothold in Northern Ireland.
Voters in the 6 County bit of Ireland rejected Brexit in the 2016 British State referendum by a large margin : 55 to 45 per cent. This was a unique political event – opposition to Brexit broke down the normal sectarian divide on an important constitutional development in the north of Ireland : Almost all nationalists voted against Brexit, and they were joined by a significant number of Unionist (perhaps ex-Unionist) voters.
Afterwards a decision was needed : would a new European Union (EU) – Britain border divide the 6 and 26 county bits of Ireland – or would a new border emerge, dividing the island of Great Britain from all of Ireland?
Everybody knew a new Brexit border could not be imposed on Ireland. The British government needed window-dressing for its Unionist allies : the “Windsor Framework” was unveiled with a walk-on part for the reluctant British monarch King Charles.
This rickety constitutional construction kicked a sleeping dog. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement. copperfastened an imperialist crime – the 1922 partition of Ireland. A promise that partition could be ended through an internal 6 county referendum is part of the GFA – but this was never meant to happen. The architects of the GFA reasoned, correctly in 1998, that an anti-partition majority in the north of Ireland was extremely unlikely. The Unionist Veto was safe. After Brexit, not any more.
The former Fine Gael leader and taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, is saying out loud what many people know is true but do not want to hear :
A Nigel Farage-led UK goverment could herald a united Ireland – Varadkar
Tomás Ó Flatharta 