Susan McKay

Last updated

Susan McKay (born 1957) is an Irish writer, journalist and documentary filmmaker.

Contents

Biography

Born in Derry, in Northern Ireland, McKay moved to Dublin in 1975 to study at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD). In 1981, she moved to Belfast to write her PhD at The Queen's University of Belfast but instead became one of the founding members of the Belfast Rape Crisis Centre. Thereafter, she worked on a number of community development projects before becoming a full-time journalist in 1989.

McKay was social affairs correspondent, and later Northern Ireland editor, for the Sunday Tribune . [1]   during which she won a number of awards, including Print Journalist of the Year in 2000 [2] and Feature Writer of the Year [3]

In 1998, she published her first book, Sophia's Story the biography of a survivor of child abuse  Other books include Northern Protestants – An Unsettled People, [4] McKay has described as "a study of the people I uneasily call my own." [1]  and Bear in Mind These Dead [5] a history of the Troubles from the perspective of those who were bereaved.

From 2009 to 2012, McKay was CEO of the National Women's Council of Ireland, but resigned in protest at a cut by the government of 40% of the organisation's funds. [6]

She has produced award-winning documentaries for radio and television, including The Daughter's Story, [7] about the daughters of Fran O'Toole, one of the victims of the Miami Showband Massacre in 1975, and Inez, A Challenging Woman [8] about Northern Irish trade union leader and human rights activist Inez McCormack.

She currently writes for The Guardian / The Observer , [9] The New York Times , [10] The Irish Times [11] and the London Review of Books . [12]

She was awarded with an Honorary Doctor in Letters at Trinity College, Dublin on December 1, 2023. The citation stated: "Susan McKay is a powerful writer and journalist with a distinctive voice of her own, as is evident to anyone who reads her features in The Irish Times, The Guardian, or the London Review of Books, The New Yorker, or the New York Times - but just as striking is her ability to listen. Her recent appointment as Irish Press Ombudsman is a testament to her exceptional integrity".

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Dillon</span> Northern Irish journalist and author (born 1949)

Martin Dillon is an Irish author, journalist, and broadcaster. He has won international acclaim for his investigative reporting and non-fiction works on The Troubles, including his bestselling trilogy, The Shankill Butchers, The Dirty War and God and the Gun, about the Northern Ireland conflict. The historian and scholar, Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien, described him as "our Virgil to that Inferno". The Irish Times hailed him as "one of the most creative writers of our time".

Francis Arthur Ormsby is an author and poet from Northern Ireland.

Ivan Averill Cooper was a nationalist politician from Northern Ireland. He was a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland and a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). He is best known for leading the civil rights march on 30 January 1972 that developed into the Bloody Sunday massacre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gusty Spence</span> Ulster loyalist (1933–2011)

Augustus Andrew Spence was a leader of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and a leading loyalist politician in Northern Ireland. One of the first UVF members to be convicted of murder, Spence was a senior figure in the organisation for over a decade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monica McWilliams</span> British politician and academic (born 1954)

Monica Mary McWilliams is a Northern Irish academic, peace activist, human rights defender and former politician in Northern Ireland.

William Frederick Frazer was a Northern Irish Ulster loyalist activist and advocate for those affected by Irish republican violence in Northern Ireland. He was the founder and leader of the pressure group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR). He was also a leader of the Love Ulster campaign and more recently, the Belfast City Hall flag protests. In 2019, from evidence gained in a police report, journalist Mandy McAuley asserted that the Ulster Defence Association had been supplied weapons, in the late 1980s, by the Ulster Resistance and that Frazer was the point of contact for those supplies. She asserted that multiple sources also confirmed this to be true. Those weapons were linked to at least 70 paramilitary murders.

Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR) is a non-governmental organisation founded in 1998 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Based in Markethill, it describes itself as a "non-sectarian, non-political organisation" that works "in the interests of the innocent victims of terrorism in South Armagh."

Ruth Dudley Edwards is an Irish Unionist historian and writer, with published work in the fields of history, biography and crime fiction, and a number of awards won. Born in Dublin, Ireland, she has lived in England since 1965, and describes herself as British-Irish. Her revisionist approach to Irish history and her views have sometimes generated controversy or ridicule. She has been a columnist with the Irish Sunday Independent, the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and The News Letter.

The South Armagh Republican Action Force shortened simply to the Republican Action Force for a small number of attacks in Belfast was an Irish republican paramilitary group that was active from September 1975 to April 1977 during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Its area of activity was mainly the southern part of County Armagh. According to writers such as Ed Moloney and Richard English, it was a cover name used by some members of the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade. The journalist Jack Holland, alleged that members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) were also involved in the group. During the same time that the South Armagh Republican Action Force was active the INLA carried out at least one sectarian attack that killed Protestant civilians using the covername "Armagh People's Republican Army". According to Malcolm Sutton's database at CAIN, the South Armagh Republican Action Force was responsible for 24 deaths during the conflict, all of whom were classified as civilians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billy McCaughey</span> Northern Ireland loyalist paramilitary (c. 1950–2006)

William McCaughey was a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary's Special Patrol Group and the illegal Ulster Volunteer Force's Glennane gang in the 1970s. He was imprisoned for 16 years for murder from 1980 to 1996. On his release he worked as a loyalist and Orange Order activist until his death in 2006.

Henry Patrick McDonald was a Northern Irish journalist and author. He was a correspondent for The Guardian and Observer, and from 2021 was the political editor of The News Letter, one of Northern Ireland's national daily newspapers, based in Belfast.

Burntollet Bridge was the setting for an attack on 4 January 1969 during the first stages of the Troubles of Northern Ireland. A People's Democracy march from Belfast to Derry was attacked by Ulster loyalists whilst passing through Burntollet.

Edna Longley is an Irish literary critic and cultural commentator specialising in modern Irish and British poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tullyvallen massacre</span> Mass shooting near Tullyvallen, Northern Ireland

The Tullyvallen massacre took place on 1 September 1975, when Irish republican gunmen attacked an Orange Order meeting hall at Tullyvallen, near Newtownhamilton in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The Orange Order is an Ulster Protestant and unionist brotherhood. Five Orangemen were killed and seven wounded in the shooting. The "South Armagh Republican Action Force" claimed responsibility, saying it was retaliation for a string of attacks on Catholic civilians by Loyalists. It is believed members of the Provisional IRA carried out the attack, despite the organisation being on ceasefire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billy Mitchell (loyalist)</span> Northern Ireland loyalist (1940–2006)

William Mitchell was a Northern Ireland loyalist, community activist and member of the Progressive Unionist Party. Mitchell was a leading member of the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and served a life sentence for his part in a double murder. He later abandoned his UVF membership and took up cross-community work.

David Hugh Browne is an Ulster unionist politician from Northern Ireland.

Olwen Fouéré is an Irish actress and writer/director in theatre, film and visual arts. She was born in Galway, Ireland to Breton parents Yann Fouéré and Marie-Magdeleine Mauger. In 2020, she was listed at number 22 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

Inez McCormack was a Northern Irish trade union leader and human rights activist. She was the first female president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, representing the UNISON union. She also successfully campaigned for the inclusion of strong equality and human rights provisions in the Good Friday Agreement, and was a signatory to the MacBride Principles for fair employment. In 2002 she was described as "probably the best known and most experienced human rights campaigner in this country."

Denis Liddell Ireland was an Irish essayist and political activist. A northern Protestant, after service in the First World War he embraced the cause of Irish independence. He also advanced the social credit ideas of C. H. Douglas. In Belfast, his efforts to encourage Protestants in the exploration of Irish identity and interest were set back when in 1942 his Ulster Union Club was found to have been infiltrated by a successful recruiter for the Irish Republican Army. In Dublin, where he argued economic policy had failed to "see independence through," he entered the Seanad Eireann, the Irish Senate, in 1948 for the republican and social-democratic Clann na Poblachta. He was the first member of the Oireachtas, the Irish Parliament, to be resident in Northern Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lyra McKee</span> Northern Ireland journalist (1990–2019)

Lyra Catherine McKee was a journalist from Northern Ireland who wrote for several publications about the consequences of the Troubles. She also served as an editor for Mediagazer, a news aggregator website. On 18 April 2019, McKee was fatally shot during rioting in the Creggan area of Derry.

References

  1. 1 2 "Susan McKay – A Century Of Women". cms.acenturyofwomen.com. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  2. ↑ "ESB National Media Awards 2000". RTÉ. 1 November 2000.
  3. ↑ "2002 ESB National Media Awards". The Irish Times. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  4. ↑ "Northern Protestants". blackstaffpress.com. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  5. ↑ Anthony, Andrew (31 May 2008). "Review: Bear in Mind These Dead by Susan McKay | Watching the Door by Kevin Myers | My Father's Watch by Patrick Maguire". The Observer. ISSN   0029-7712 . Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  6. ↑ NWCI.ie. "Executive Board of National Women's Council of Ireland accepts resignation of Susan McKay as CEO". National Women's Council of Ireland | NWCI.ie'. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  7. ↑ "Fran's daughters in documentary". independent. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  8. ↑ "Inez: A Challenging Woman". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  9. ↑ "Susan McKay | The Guardian". the Guardian. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  10. ↑ McKay, Susan (27 August 2018). "Opinion | No, the Church Does Not Love Ireland (Published 2018)". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  11. ↑ "Susan McKay at the Irish Times". www.irishtimes.com. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  12. ↑ Susan McKay. "Susan McKay · LRB". London Review of Books. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.