Background
Born Sylvia Eileen Paisley in Galbally, Dungannon, County Tyrone. Her father was Robert Paisley, a farmer, and she had three sisters. The family saw tragedy when Sylvia's mother accidentally drowned when Sylvia was four. She went to Dungannon High School before studying Law at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, obtaining a First and the highest mark in her year.
She went on to lecture in Law at the Queen's University of Belfast at the same time as David Trimble. She did not enter politics until 1998 when she joined the Ulster Unionist Party, having been impressed by the role the UUP played in negotiating the Belfast Agreement. She rose to a place on the party Executive by the following year.
On 6 November 2008 her husband Jack Hermon died. Shortly afterward, her father also died.
She is a longstanding supporter of the Alzheimer's Research Trust and helped launch its Northern Ireland network centre.
Read more about this topic: Sylvia Hermon
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)