LISTEN: Arlene Foster expressed disappointed in Boris' Brexit plan on RTE show as UK left EU

By Q Radio News

First Minister Arlene Foster has insisted Northern Ireland and the Republic will remain good neighbours as she expressed huge disappointment in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit plan.     

The DUP leader told RTE's The Late Late show she's "rankled" by the prospect of a border down the Irish Sea by the end of the year.  

She also refused to say if she trusted Mr Johnson. 

Ms Foster was speaking as around 100 people gathered at Stormont to celebrate the historic moment at 11 o'clock last night.    

The moment the UK officially left the EU was marked with cheers and the singing of God Save The Queen at the gates of Parliament Buildings. 

Crowds started gathering from 10.30pm in preparation to hear the distinctive sound of a Lambeg drum being played.

DUP MLA Jim Wells led a countdown from 10 to 11pm before shouting "freedom" to cheers and the waving of union flags and sparklers at Stormont's front gates.

A piper then played to mark the moment.

The event, billed as a thanksgiving, was opened with a prayer before speakers including Mr Wells and independent unionist councillor Henry Reilly addressed those assembled.

"This is a happy day for our nation, this means that our nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland moves out from the bondage of Europe to the freedom of the rest of the world," Mr Wells said.

"We have an economy that is bigger than Russia, that is bigger than India, we are the fifth largest trading nation in the world and therefore we have a wonderful opportunity as a nation to go out and to trade and to prosper and I am confident that we will do so.

"The people who are telling us tonight represents a major disaster were the same people that told us 14 years ago that if we didn't join the euro the British economy would collapse, well how wrong were they because had we had joined the euro, then we during the recession would have been in a disastrous situation."

However hundreds also took part in protests.  

Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson joined Communities Against Brexit campaigners on the Derry-Londonderry and Donegal border.

She claimed residents in the north are now being treated as "second class EU citizens".