Clare Short

The Right Honourable Clare Short (born February 15, 1946) is a British Labour Party politician. She is a cousin of Canadian-American actor/comic Martin Short, whose parents were emigrants from Northern Ireland. She is the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood, and was Secretary of State for International Development from May 2, 1997 until her resignation on May 12, 2003.

Background

Clare Short was born to Irish Catholic parents from County Armagh, Northern Ireland in Birmingham, England in 1946. She would later be supportive of peaceful Sinn Fein initiatives to the displeasure of many Britons, although it is fair to say she was never a supporter of IRA violence, some of the worst of which was inflicted in a 1974 bombing of her hometown of Birmingham. Clare Short was briefly married to a fellow student after she became pregnant at 18. Their son was given up for adoption, and did not make contact with his birth mother until 1996. She discovered that her son was a staunch Tory who worked in the financial sector in the City of London, and that she was a grandmother. Her second marriage, to former Labour minister Alex Lyon, turned to tragedy: he suffered from Alzheimer's disease and died in 1993.

Related Topics:
County Armagh - Northern Ireland - IRA - 1974 - Birmingham - Adoption - Tory - City of London - Alex Lyon - Alzheimer's disease - 1993

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