A native of Merseyside, England, Lorraine Turner heads up the Northern Ireland Bureau’s New York office. She’s worked in New York for several years in Northern Irish politics, and is a familiar and welcome face in the local Irish American scene.

A graduate of John Moores University in Liverpool, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in media and culture studies, Turner’s mother Patricia Joan Shiels is a native of Dublin, as are all her maternal ancestors.

“I am originally from Merseyside, an area around the city of Liverpool which at one time had the largest Irish population in Great Britain,” says Turner. The Irish, she adds, “helped weave the fabric that makes the modern city of Liverpool famous the world over. In fact, three of Liverpool’s Fab Four proudly claimed Irish heritage, so I am in good company!”

Turner has spent an exciting 10 years in New York, she says. Her Irish/English upbringing helped her embrace her heritage even more once she arrived in the U.S.

“Thanks to my Irish mother, I was exposed, during my youth, to many aspects of Irish culture,” she says. “My Irish roots came in more useful than I ever could have imagined in the 10 years I have spent working in government on the American dimension of the Northern Irish peace process, and now representing Northern Ireland’s devolved administration at a time of great hope and the promise of increasing prosperity.”

 

 

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