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Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has been an ever-present feature of the political landscape in Northern Ireland for several decades.
But his leadership of the Democratic Unionist Party came to an end on 29 March, when it revealed Donaldson had resigned as chief after he was charged with sexual offences of a “historical nature”.
Born in County Down in the 1960s, he was raised during the Troubles and has been a vocal campaigner for unionism throughout his life.
Donaldson came to the fore after the UK left the EU for his opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol – which he believed undermined Northern Ireland‘s place in the United Kingdom.
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Growing up and family deaths
Donaldson was born in 1962 and raised in Kilkeen in County Down alongside four brothers and three sisters in what he described as “a traditional, rural, home-centred upbringing”.
As a boy, his “childhood innocence was shattered” by the Troubles – in 1970 his cousin Samuel Donaldson, a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was killed in an IRA car bombing.
As a young man, he joined the Orange Order, a protestant group in which he later became an Assistant Grand Master.
He was at one point chairman of the Ulster Young Unionist Council, and also joined the Ulster Defence Regiment – a part of the British Army which mainly consisted of volunteers, who largely spent their time guarding key points, patrolling, carrying out surveillance, and manning vehicle checkpoints.
In 1985 Samuel’s brother, Alex, was also…
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