Background
Dodds was born into a farming family in Rathfriland, County Down where she attended Banbridge Academy before moving on to study at Queen"s University Belfast.
Dodds was born into a farming family in Rathfriland, County Down where she attended Banbridge Academy before moving on to study at Queen"s University Belfast.
Queen"s University Belfast.
Dodds qualified as a teacher and taught history and English in Laurelhill High School, Lisburn. In 2003, she was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly to represent Belfast West. She was the first Unionist elected to a regional assembly from West Belfast in more than 20 years (the last being Thomas Passmore to the 1982-1986 Assembly).
Her strongest support base during the election campaign was in the Shankill Road area of the constituency.
Following her election to the Assembly, Dodds contested the Court District Electoral Area in the 2005 Local Government Elections. On that occasion she polled in excess of three electoral quotas and her surplus votes enabled the election of two running mates.
In that election, she polled more votes than any other local government candidate in Northern Ireland. Despite increasing her vote from the 2003 Assembly election, she narrowly lost her seat to Sinn Féin in 2007.
Dodds has also been active within Belfast City Council, where she was Chief Whip of the 14-councillor Democratic Unionist Party group.
She chaired the Policy and Resources Committee on the council and actively supported a campaign to host a homecoming parade for the RIR and other armed forces returning home from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. European Parliament 2009-Present
On 3 February 2009, Dodds was selected by the Democratic Unionist Party as its candidate for the 2009 election to the European Parliament and was elected an Member of the European Parliament on 8 June, representing Northern Ireland. Despite her election, the results were disappointing for Dodds and her party.
The Democratic Unionist Party"s share of the vote fell 14% to just over 18%.
While the Westminster expenses scandal and a perceived poor performance in live debates were cited as reasons for the poor result, Dodds herself blamed the decline in Democratic Unionist Party votes on former Democratic Unionist Party member Jim Allister of the Traditional Unionist Voice (Technischer Überwachungsverein) splinter party, who gained 66,000 first preference votes. Allister had accused the Democratic Unionist Party of "betrayal" in going into government with Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin topped the poll, the first time a republican party had done so in a European election in Northern Ireland. Dodds was elected third, behind Jim Nicholson of the UUP, and with fewer votes than the quota (the elections being held under the single transferable vote system).
In July 2009, on the day when the MEPs were about to take their seats, Diane Dodds refused to take her seat next to the newly elected Banque Nationale de Paris MEPs, Andrew Brons and Nick Griffin.
2nd Northern Ireland Assembly.