| John Alderdice
was born in 1955 in Northern Ireland. He
read Medicine at Queen’s University
of Belfast and graduated MB, BCh, BAO in
1978. He became a member of the Royal College
of Psychiatrist (MRCPsych) in 1983, and later
specialised in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.
In 1997 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal
College of Psychiatrists (FRCPsych), and
an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of
Physicians of Ireland, and in 2001 an Honorary
Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
and of the British Psychoanalytical Society.
Lord Alderdice joined the Alliance Party
in 1978 and was elected Party Leader
in October 1987. In June 1989 he was
elected to Belfast City Council and in
1996, to the new Northern Ireland Forum.
He led the Alliance delegation there
and in the multi-party Talks chaired
by Senator George Mitchell. Raised to
the peerage in October 1996, he took
his seat on the Liberal Democrat benches
in the House of Lords on 5 November that
year. Lord Alderdice was one of the negotiators
of the Belfast Agreement signed on Good
Friday 1998.
He was elected an Executive Member of the
Federation of European Liberal, Democrat
and Reform Parties in 1987, Treasurer in
1995 and was from 1999 to 2003 a Vice President
of ELDR. In 1992 Lord Alderdice was elected
a Vice-President of Liberal International,
in October 2000 the Deputy President and
in May 2005 President of Liberal International,
the world-wide federation of some 90 liberal
political parties.
In 1998 Lord Alderdice was elected a
member of Belfast East for the new Northern
Ireland Assembly. He subsequently resigned
as Leader of the Alliance Party after
11 years in the position, and was immediately
appointed Speaker of the new Assembly.
On 7 January 2004, the British Government
appointed Lord Alderdice as a Commissioner
for the newly established Independent
Monitoring Commission. To avoid a conflict
of interest he took the decision to resign
as Speaker with effect from the end of
February 2004.
Outside of psychiatry and politics,
Lord Alderdice has travelled widely through
his involvement in national and international
religious and professional organisations.
He helped to found a number of Northern
Ireland charities and professional organisations,
and is an elder in the Presbyterian Church
in Ireland.
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