Iris Robinson - Personal Life

Personal Life

The oldest of seven children, Iris Collins was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland to Mary McCarten and Joseph Collins, an English soldier. She grew up in a working-class area in the east of the city. She describes herself as a born again Christian and attends Metropolitan Tabernacle Church in Belfast. She comes from family with a mixed religious background as ten of her first cousins are Roman Catholics. She attended Cregagh Primary School, Knockbreda Intermediate School and Cregagh Technical College before becoming a secretary.

She married Peter Robinson on 26 July 1970. They were the first husband and wife ever to represent Northern Ireland constituencies in Parliament at the same time. They have three grown-up children: Jonathan, Gareth and Rebekah. Gareth Robinson is a Councillor on Castlereagh Borough Council.

Outside politics Robinson listed her interests as charity fundraising for multiple sclerosis, interior design and horseriding.

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