DUP MP GREGORY Campbell has denied lecturing President Catherine Connolly during her visit to Derry yesterday where he told her “you’re in our country”.

The interaction between the pair happened after Connolly addressed the Guildhall.

In her speech yesterday, the president said she was grateful to the people of Derry for showing “the path from conflict to peace”, adding that “justice is still awaited” by the survivors of families of victims of Bloody Sunday.

Shortly after the speech, the DUP MP for East Derry spoke to Connolly. Referring to the fact that he would be attending a debate in Dublin later in the day, he said: “You’re in our country. Tonight I’m going to your country.”

He added: “We’re not leaving the United Kingdom, not now or at any time in the future, so I think it’s better if we try and ensure no one rewrites the past as we all build for the future.”

Connolly said she was there “to listen”, adding “at the end of the day we’re human beings and we have to have respect”.

Campbell is Northern Ireland’s longest-serving current MP, having been elected in East Derry in 2001. He was previously a councillor in Derry City Council between 1981 and 2011. 

Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast’s Anton Savage this morning, Campbell denied that he lectured or behaved discourteously towards the Irish President. 

“I observed and listened to a speech that didn’t bear any resemblance to reaching out because Unionism was non-existent in the speech. That’s what happened,” he said.

“No one could look and listen to that speech and say that was a balanced approach, and I drew attention to that in a polite and courteous manner, and she responded in kind.”

‘No reference to Londonderry’

Campbell said Connolly’s speech in Belfast offered “a reasonably balanced approach… and people seemed to respond to that positively”, something he claimed was not present in her speech yesterday. 

He said there was “no reference whatever to the name of Londonderry” and that Connolly did not mention the “sufferings of the Unionist community in Londonderry”, but made “numerous mentions of the sufferings of Nationalists”. 

The name of the city remains a contentious issue for some. The ‘London’ prefix was added to the city when it was granted a royal charter by King James I in 1613.

In 1984, the name of the nationalist-controlled council was changed to Derry, but the city itself continued to be officially known by its longer name. In 2007, a High Court judge ruled that was to remain the case.

Nationalists typically refer to the city as ‘Derry’ while Unionists call it ‘Londonderry’.

Campbell continued: “I thought that it would be appropriate to say to her – it would have been totally inappropriate not to say anything – to say, look, I think there’s a better way of dealing with this.

“I just drew attention to the fact that she was in our country this morning, and I was going to be in hers tonight.

“Thankfully, last night, when I went to Dublin, there was quite a good response from a large attendance at a university debate, and people were able to hear a variety of opinions, and not just one.”

🗣️"Gregory Campbell, what's to be gained by such discourtesy to the head of state of the Republic of Ireland?"

“You’re in our country. Tonight I’m going to your country” - Those were the words of DUP MP Gregory Campbell during an official visit by President Catherine Connolly to… pic.twitter.com/tAlWlj3kuD

— NewstalkFM (@NewstalkFM) February 6, 2026

Campbell said he hopes Connolly “will reflect on that speech” the next time she visits Northern Ireland. 

She’s only in office a few months, and hopefully can adopt the more balanced approach that she took on the first day of her visit, rather than the second one.

He referenced that Connolly and the Irish government have said they want cooperation and to improve relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic, something he said he agrees with. 

“The way we do that is recognising the existence of each other. It’s not too much to ask people to recognise your existence, is it? Is that discourteous to point that out? No, I don’t think it is.”

‘I don’t think it was a positive’

Savage asked if Campbell thought Connolly calling the city Derry did not recognise his existence. 

“Along with the fact that there were mentions of the issues, problems and murder of Catholics and Bloody Sunday, and the non-reference and mention of the same thing that happened to many Unionists and Protestants in the same city,” Campbell responded. 

He questioned whether someone in the Department of Foreign Affairs would have advised Connolly to deliver a more “even-handed” speech in Belfast but to “make sure that the speech is nationalist-based” in Derry because “you’re playing a home game there”. 

Asked if he was suggesting this was a “deliberate tactic” by the DFA, he said:

“The facts are that in Belfast, it would appear most people heard the President of the Republic of Ireland speak and thought it was a reasonably balanced approach. The equal facts are that the next day when she was in a predominantly Nationalist city, that was not the case and no one could argue that it was the case.

“I don’t know whether that was deliberate, accidental, just a case of oversight, I don’t know. But it happened. I don’t know why it happened, but it did.”

Asked if Connolly’s visit had been a negative in terms of improving relations between the Republic and the North, Campbell said: “I don’t think it was a positive.

“I don’t think it’s something that will be remembered in months to come as a huge negative, but on the day, it was a negative, and I think it can be improved upon on her next visit.”

Campbell is perhaps best known in the Republic of Ireland for comments he made in 2014, in which he ridiculed the Irish language.

“Curry my yoghurt can coca coalyer,” Campbell said during a debate in the Northern Assembly.

Responding to Campbell at the time, Sinn Féin Culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín described Campbell’s comments as “pure ignorance”.

He was barred from addressing the parliament for a day after he failed to apologise for the remark.