Hello, my guest for this Red Line's conversation is a politician whose rise to prominence has been swift.

Six years ago, she'd just been elected as an alliance councillor in Lisburn.

Three years after that, she became an MLA and last July, she was returned as the MP for Lagan Valley.

She makes no secret of her mixed roots, enjoys her reputation for straight talking and tackles her critics and online abusers head on.

She's talked openly about her difficult relationship with her late father, her husband's serious illness and her own health battle with endometriosis.

Sorsia Eastwood, welcome to Red Lions.

Hiya.

You have a reputation for being up front with people,

unafraid to speak your mind, confident in your own abilities.

Do you recognise that in yourself?

Do you know what?

It's so funny listening to all that played back because I really believe you're a product of

your environment.

I went in primary school like 20 seconds away from where we are here in L a product of your environment. And I went

in primary school like 20 seconds away from where we are here in Lisbon and then of course

I went of St. Domics in Belfast. And the way in which we were taught and the way in which we were

encouraged to stand up and advocate for ourselves, I believe, has really been something that has been

a huge part of my life

and we were never told to sit down and be quiet and now to side out of mind and all that it was

very much stand up for yourself stand up for your rights stand up for what you believe in and

I'm no different than any other st alms girl in that way. There's lots of us in public life now.

We'd probably all fit that bill and I think the school would be very disappointed if we didn't.

...