Arlene Foster Q&A: I’d invite Edward Carson to a dinner party and go on holiday to Lake Garda

What are your most prominent childhood memories?

I remember celebrating birthdays in the hayfields. Aged two I went missing, famously, and everyone was wondering where I had got to. I had fallen asleep in the byre and my father was trying to take the cows in to milk them and one particular cow would not go into the stand and daddy kept hitting it on the backside and it kept backing out, because the reality was that I was at the front of the stand fast asleep.

*What makes you laugh the most?
I could be very cruel and say some of my political opponents. I know people don’t have this perception of me, but I love a good laugh and socialising with my friends when I can and I look forward to doing all that again.  


*Who would you invite to an ideal dinner party if you could invite anyone from history?
I would be fascinated to have Edward Carson there. I would ask him about the challenges he faced, because as we know he didn’t want to divide Ireland off from the rest of the United Kingdom and he had to settle for the six counties [being part of Britain]. Sometimes compromise is where we end up in politics and that was the case for Carson. I’d also ask him about the trial of Oscar Wilde.
Then Margaret Thatcher. She was a towering figure and I would have loved to have met her. She was so strong in her vision of what she wanted to do politically.
I’m a huge, huge royalist so my third guest would be Queen Elizabeth I who certainly navigated some tricky times in the Tudor period.
And I’d serve them some local produce, like some Glenarm salmon and maybe steak Diane - provided I don’t have to do the cooking! We’d have a nice sauvignon blanc with the fish and then switch to a pinot noir.

*Can you describe yourself in three words?
Loyal, determined and loving.


*Favourite film?
Four Weddings and A Funeral never loses it’s charm.

*Favourite music and is it true that you were a wedding singer?
No! I sang at two of my friends’ weddings but that doesn’t make me a wedding singer! I listen to everything from the Backstreet Boys and Take That to classical music by Handel. I really miss congregational singing. I’ve always enjoyed being in the church choir.

*Favourite holiday destination?
Lake Garda in Italy.


*If you had the power to change anything in the world what would it be?
World hunger. When I saw that the UK government was cutting back on its financial aid to Yemen, despite the fact that there are so many children in hunger there it was something I commented upon and felt great sadness about. We forget how blessed we are here in the Western world.