Robert Eadie who serves and supports the Bulgarians in Northern Ireland

In December 2025, the Council of Ministers adopted a decision by which the British and Irish citizen with a Bulgarian identity card, Dr. Robert Eadie, was appointed Honorary Consular Officer of the Republic of Bulgaria in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with headquarters in the city of Belfast and a consular district covering the territory of Northern Ireland. He is an engineer and lecturer in civil engineering at Ulster University and before Brexit he was a visiting lecturer at several Bulgarian educational institutions, including the Technical University and New Bulgarian University, as well as the "Lyuben Karavelov" Higher School of Civil Engineering in Sofia. A scholarship for students at the "Ivan Vazov" Bulgarian School in Armagh, Northern Ireland, a donation of a training reactor for the needs of the Technical University of Sofia and his selfless commitment to the problems of Bulgarians in Northern Ireland, contribute to the respect for Robert Eadie both in his homeland and in Bulgaria. In an interview with Radio Bulgaria Robert Eadie told us how fate introduced him to Bulgaria and what this position, for which he does not receive additional financial resources, means to him:

“In 2002, I met the first Bulgarian I ever knew. She was called Tsvetanka Lilova. Up until 2002, there'd been very few Bulgarians who had decided to make Northern Ireland their home. But in 2002 there was a shortage of healthcare professionals across the UK and the UK government encouraged those with qualifications in nursing to come from Bulgaria to make their home in the UK. There was a group that came to Northern Ireland and Tsvetanka was among those. And on the second day that she was here, I met her, and she was asking for directions. Unfortunately, she passed away in 2013. But I got introduced to the beauties of the Rila Mountain, the Seven Lakes, Veliko Tarnovo, Sozopol and other places. It was only when she passed away in 2013 that I realised just how difficult things were for Bulgarians here. When she passed away, there was no consul. Because of our situation in Northern Ireland, we had troubles. And it meant that I couldn't take human remains across the border to the embassy in Dublin. I couldn't fly with them without them being signed off by an embassy, which meant that I had to take a ferry across to Scotland and then a 14-hour trip on a bus to the London Embassy. Now, the London Embassy were really brilliant when I got there, but the difficulty was actually getting there.”

Over the next few years, Mr. Eadie, with the help of Deyan Stanchev - then chairman of the Bulgarian Association in Northern Ireland, tried to get a new appointment for honorary consul.

"We managed to get an honorary consul. Paul Martin was appointed as the first honorary consul in 2017. Unfortunately, Paul passed away in June 2025 and then I was approached to fill his place. I would like to do the best I can for all of the Bulgarians in Northern Ireland."

The Honorary Consul does not have exact information about the number of Bulgarians who live in Northern Ireland these days. The data he has refers to those who received settled status after Brexit. Their number is 19,500, but this number does not include people with dual citizenship. Therefore, it can be said that about 20,000 Bulgarians have settled in Northern Ireland. Robert Eadie is well informed about the serious challenge that the early parliamentary elections, which are coming on April 19, will pose for them. The reason for this is the decision of the National Assembly to limit the number of sections outside the diplomatic and consular representations for countries outside the EU to 20.

“We used to have four polling stations. We had a polling station in Armagh, we had a polling station in Belfast, we had a polling station in Downpatrick and we had a polling station in Enniskillen. If you take the numbers of actual people who were voting there, there were roughly 1,000 votes in total, but I suspect that because people think that there's a restriction now that there'll be more votes actually cast this time. What I've done is I've approached the embassy in London in relation to using the consulate as a polling station for Belfast. Hopefully the documents will be through in time but if that comes through that means that the consulate would not be considered one of the 20 polling stations and we could have a polling station in Belfast, we could also have the polling station in Armagh. The ones in Enniskillen are about an hour and a half journey away from Belfast but they're only 12 miles from the border with the Republic of Ireland. What I've suggested to the embassy is if they could enquire of the Bulgarian embassy in Dublin, would it be possible for the Bulgarians from Enniskillen to go across to Blacklion, which is only 12 miles down the road and vote there because there's no restrictions on the number of polling stations in the Republic of Ireland because it's still in the European Union.”

Mr. Eadie says that the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland can be crossed without queues and the journey there is easy due to a special post-Brexit agreement that ensures that this border will remain open.

A special website is also being developed, on which the Bulgarian embassy in London, the consulate in Edinburgh and the Bulgarian organizations in Northern Ireland will be able to publish all the information important to them in one place.

Bulgarians in Scotland and Northern Ireland: New rules make it difficult to vote

Elections come and go but Bulgarians in Northern Ireland continue to build their lives there and the consul makes sure they are represented with dignity. One of the initiatives that Robert Eadie is currently working on is related to the memory of the passengers who died in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, among whom there were Bulgarians:

“The Titanic was built in Belfast. We have a memorial to those who perished on the Titanic. What you might not know is that there are at least 38 Bulgarians who perished on the Titanic, but there's one name that has been missed and I would like to get a separate memorial specifically for the Bulgarians. I've approached Belfast City Council to see if we can get such a memorial.”

A curious fact is that in Bulgaria there is also a monument dedicated to those who died in the shipwreck. It is located in the village of Gumoshtnik.

Bulgarian survivor of Titanic tragedy attracts foreign tourists to native village