Journalist, author and trailblazing feminist Nell McCafferty has died. She was 80.
Her family confirmed her death this morning at a nursing home in Co Donegal.
McCafferty was born in Derry in 1944 to Hugh and Lily McCafferty and grew up in the Bogside. She was among the early cohorts of Catholics admitted to Queens University in Belfast, where she studied arts and got involved in civil rights politics. She spent time teaching briefly before beginning her journalism career in The Irish Times.
[ Nell McCafferty at 80: ‘Celebrating eight decades of enduring courage’Opens in new window ]
She was a founding member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement and found her voice writing on women and women’s rights, poverty and social injustices in the Ireland of the late 1960s and 1970s.
Her noted works include the book A Woman to Blame, on the Kerry babies case. Other books included The Armagh Women on woman republican prisoners and their hunger strikes in Armagh jail; Peggy Deery: A Derry Family at War; her autobiography, and a collection of her writings, Goodnight Sisters: Selected Writings of Nell McCafferty.
In tributes to mark her 80th birthday in March, published in The Irish Times, President Michael D Higgins said those who had “had Nell as a friend and an ally are very fortunate in their being given the gift of experiencing humanity in all its possibilities and vulnerabilities, and delivered as she did it with a sense of humour that paid tribute to the authenticity of her Derry upbringing”.
Taoiseach Simon Harris paid tribute to McCafferty’s “laser-like focus on calling out inequality and injustice”.
“She suffered no fools but had a kindness and warmth for many. Her wit and Derry turn of phrase made her impossible to ignore,” he said in a statement.
He added: “Nell McCafferty left Ireland a much better place than she found it and she played her part with spirit and style.”
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