The conviction of Sir Jeffrey Donaldson yesterday on multiple counts of historical child sexual abuse, including the rape of a child, has sent shockwaves through the Northern Irish political system.
Donaldson – so high-profile that he was often simply known both by friends and foes as “Jeffrey” – was, until his arrest in 2024, Northern Ireland’s most prominent politician. The very week before his arrest, he had been in the White House, taking something of a victory lap following his negotiation of a return of devolved powers to Northern Ireland from Westminster.
Unionism's Most Influential Voice
Over a 40-year career, Donaldson had been one of the most influential unionist voices during the province’s tumultuous peace process. Initially a member of the then-dominant Ulster Unionist Party, he had worked as an agent for his hero Sir Enoch Powell before entering Parliament and was marked for great things from the start.
As the province moved toward a tentative peace in the late 1990s, Donaldson emerged as a staunch critic of the unionist leadership, arguing that the peace deal – later known as the Good Friday Agreement – sold out to nationalists and to the Provisional IRA. As Sir David Trimble, the unionist leader awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, moved closer to a permanent peace, Donaldson remained a staunch critic. Eventually, in a prominent defection, he switched his allegiance to the more radical Democratic Unionist Party, led by Ian Paisley.
Articulate, bright and always reasonable in person and in debate, Donaldson’s easy charm was credited by many with taking the “hard edges” off the Democratic Unionist Party’s image. The party profited from his criticism of the Good Friday Agreement. In the early 2000s, Donaldson’s constant presence on television and in debates was integral to the Democratic Unionist Party’s inexorable replacement of the Ulster Unionists as the leading voice of unionism in the province. His accession to the party’s leadership was always seen as a matter of “when”, rather than “if”.
Dark Secret
Yet all along, he had been hiding a dark secret. The court heard that his abuse spanned many years, beginning in the 1980s. His victims were children. And, away from the image of a staunchly religious family man, jurors heard about multiple affairs and infidelities that had placed immense strain on his marriage. His wife, Lady Eleanor Donaldson, was adjudged to be mentally unfit to stand trial, but the jury found – on a “facts only” basis – that she had known about his abuse for years and said nothing.
For the Democratic Unionist Party, founded by Paisley, Donaldson’s conviction is another blow. He is the second consecutive leader of that party to leave under a shadow, after his predecessor Peter Robinson was forced from office after the revelation that Robinson’s wife Iris – herself an MP – had engaged in multiple affairs with younger men and had directed benefits toward at least one lover. For a party that takes a relentlessly strong stance on issues of sexual morality, particularly homosexuality, these events are catnip for critics.
A Union(ism) Divided
Yesterday, the Democratic Unionist Party put as brave a face on matters as it could. The party’s current leader Gavin Robinson – no relation to the deposed Peter – issued a statement decrying Donaldson’s crimes and calling for him to face the “full force of the law”. Yet the Democratic Unionist Party, like the Ulster Unionists before it, now looks to be in a perilous place as the party representing unionism.
Ulster’s unionist population is increasingly divided along class and social lines, with prosperous and progressive middle-class Protestants abandoning traditional sectarian politics in favor of liberal and progressive ideas advanced by the officially non-sectarian Alliance Party. Meanwhile, revanchist and conservative unionists increasingly tilt toward the more hard-line Traditional Unionist Voice, which is doing to the Democratic Unionist Party what the Democratic Unionist Party once did to the Ulster Unionists by portraying it as a soft, sell-out party that is giving away too much to nationalism.
Amid all of this, Donaldson had been a unifying figure – perhaps the only politician trusted enough to be listened to, even if not supported, by the broad landscape of unionism. Without him, it might be expected that unionism will fracture yet further.
Demographic Shifts Causing Fear
All of this is taking place amid a demographically shifting Northern Ireland, in which the once-reliable Protestant and unionist majority no longer automatically commands the support of 50% of voters. A combination of higher birth rates among nationalists and immigration from overseas of people with no real stake in Ulster’s sectarian politics is condemning unionists to a precarious plurality of support, with nationalists increasingly pushing for a referendum on a united Ireland that would see Northern Ireland divorced from the United Kingdom if passed.
The prospects of such a referendum passing are not immediate – but unionists with a view on the longer term have justified fears about the demographic changes and the falling political identification of Protestants with unionism.
In that sense, the fall of Donaldson – once a totemic figure – into total disgrace is a blow to unionist confidence and esteem. For his supporters, they must now come to terms with the fact that for years they put their faith in a hypocrite and a monster. But for his victims, at least, justice has finally been done.