Nell McCafferty | |
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| Born | 28 March 1944 Derry, Northern Ireland |
| Occupation | Journalist, writer, playwright |
| Nationality | Irish |
Nell McCafferty (born 28 March 1944) is an Irish journalist, playwright, civil rights campaigner and feminist. She has written for The Irish Press , The Irish Times , Sunday Tribune , Hot Press and The Village Voice .
McCafferty was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, to Hugh and Lily McCafferty, and spent her early years in the Bogside area of Derry. She was admitted to Queen's University Belfast (QUB), where she took a degree in Arts. After a brief spell as a substitute English teacher in Northern Ireland and a stint on an Israeli kibbutz, she took up a post with The Irish Times .
McCafferty was a founding member of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement. [1] Her journalistic writing on women and women's rights reflected her beliefs on the status of women in Irish society. In 1970, she wrote that "Women's Liberation is finding it very hard to explain the difference, when you come down to it, except in terms of physical make-up. And men are as different as women, which no-one holds against them. It's the system which divides. Break the system, unite the people." [2]
In 1971, she travelled to Belfast with other members of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement in order to protest the prohibition of the importation and sale of contraceptives in the Republic of Ireland. The incident, which attracted extensive publicity, became known as the Contraceptive Train. [3]
After the disintegration of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement, McCafferty remained active in other women's rights groups, as well as focusing her journalism on women's rights. Her most notable work is her coverage of the Kerry Babies case, which is recorded in her book, A Woman to Blame. [4]
McCafferty contributed the piece "Coping with the womb and the border" to the 1984 anthology Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology , edited by Robin Morgan. [5]
In 1990, McCafferty won a Jacob's Award for her reports on the 1990 World Cup for RTÉ Radio 1's The Pat Kenny Show. McCafferty lives in Ranelagh, an area of Dublin. McCafferty published her autobiography, Nell, in 2004. In it, she explores her upbringing in Derry, her relationship with her parents, her fears about being gay, [6] the joy of finding a domestic haven with the love of her life, the Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain, and the pain of losing it.
In 2009, after the publication of the Murphy Report into the abuse of children in the Dublin archdiocese, McCafferty confronted Archbishop Diarmuid Martin asking him why the Catholic Church had not, as a "gesture of redemption", relinquished titles such as "Your Eminence" and "Your Grace."[ citation needed ]
McCafferty caused a controversy in 2010 with a declaration in a live Newstalk radio interview that the then Minister for Health, Mary Harney, was an alcoholic. This allegation led to a court case in which Harney was awarded €450,000 the following year. [7] [8] McCafferty has very rarely featured on live radio or television in Ireland as a commentator since the incident, despite being ever present in those media from 1990 onwards. However, she has been featured on a number of recorded shows. [9]
The Irish Times wrote that "Nell's distinctive voice, both written and spoken, has a powerful and provocative place in Irish society." [10]
McCafferty received an honorary doctorate of literature from University College Cork on 2 November 2016 for "her unparalleled contribution to Irish public life over many decades and her powerful voice in movements that have had a transformative impact in Irish society, including the feminist movement, campaigns for civil rights and for the marginalised and victims of injustice". [11]
McCafferty was in a fifteen-year relationship with the journalist Nuala O'Faolain. [9]
The Irish Republican Socialist Party or IRSP is a Marxist-Leninist and republican party in Ireland. It is often referred to as the "political wing" of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) paramilitary group. It was founded by former members of Official Sinn Féin in 1974 during the Troubles, but claims the legacy of the Irish Socialist Republican Party of 1896–1904.
Mary Dorcey is a writer, feminist, LGBTQIA+ activist, and elected member of the Aosdána. She was a writer in residence at Trinity College Dublin from 1995 to 2005, and has taught at University College Dublin.
Nuala O'Faolain was an Irish journalist, TV producer, book reviewer, teacher and writer. She became well known after the publication of her memoirs Are You Somebody? and Almost There. She wrote a biography of Irish criminal Chicago May and two novels.
Nuala Fennell was an Irish Fine Gael politician, economist and activist who served as Minister of State from December 1982 to January 1987 with responsibility for Women's Affairs and Family Law. She served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South from 1981 to 1987 and 1989 to 1992. She also served as a Senator from 1987 to 1989.
Medbh McGuckian is a poet from Northern Ireland.
Mary Kenny is an Irish journalist, broadcaster and playwright. A founding member of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement, she was one of the country's first and foremost feminists, often contributes columns to the Irish Independent and has been described as "the grand dame of Irish journalism". She is based in England.
Katherine Alexandra Cruise O'Brien was an Irish writer.
Maura "Soshin" O'Halloran was an Irish Zen Buddhist monk. She is known for her book Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind, which was posthumously published, and for being one of the "first of few Western women allowed to practice in a traditional Japanese Zen monastery".
June Levine was an Irish journalist, novelist and feminist, who played a central part in the Irish women's movement.
Feminism in Ireland has played a major role in shaping the legal and social position of women in present-day Ireland. The role of women has been influenced by numerous legal changes in the second part of the 20th century, especially in the 1970s.
The first season of Celebrity Bainisteoir was broadcast in Ireland on RTÉ One from 23 March 2008. It was won by the radio and television presenter Marty Whelan who replaced Fianna Fáil TD Mary O'Rourke as bainisteoir of Maryland, County Westmeath, during the series. Whelan's team beat solicitor Gerald Kean's Cork team, Mayfield, in the final at Parnell Park on 16 May that year.
The National LGBT Federation (NXF) is a non-governmental organisation in Dublin, Ireland, which focuses on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights.
The Contraceptive Train was a women's rights activism event which took place on 22 May 1971. Members of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement (IWLM), in protest against the law prohibiting the importation and sale of contraceptives in the Republic of Ireland, travelled to Belfast to purchase contraceptives.
The Irish Women's Liberation Movement (IWLM) was an alliance of a group of Irish women who were concerned about the sexism within Ireland both socially and legally. They first began after a meeting in Dublin's Bewley's Cafe on Grafton Street in 1970. The group was short-lived, but influential.
Máirín de Burca is an Irish writer, journalist and activist. She is particularly well known in her role with Mary Anderson, of forcing a change in Irish law to enable women to serve on juries.
Eibhlín Ní Bhriain was an Irish journalist and promoter of the Irish language.
Elgy F. Gillespie is an English-born Irish journalist and author.
Avila Kilmurray, is a community activist and peacebuilder in Northern Ireland.
Máirín Johnston is an Irish author and feminist from The Liberties in Dublin, Ireland who worked to bring contraceptives into Dublin in 1971 with the Irish Women's Liberation Movement (IWLM). Johnston has authored Dublin Belles: Conversations with Dublin Women and Around the Banks of Pimlico, as well as the children's book The Pony Express, which won a Bisto Merit Award in 1994.
Mary Maher was an American-born Irish trade unionist, feminist, and journalist. She was a founder of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement and the first women's editor at The Irish Times newspaper, where she worked for 36 years.
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