PATRICIA McCLUSKEY:PATRICIA McCLUSKEY, who died recently in Dublin aged 96 was, with her husband, Dr Conn McCluskey, one of the most significant figures in the fight for social justice in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s.
She was one of the founders of the Homeless Citizens League, set up in 1963 to protest against the denial of adequate public housing to Catholics. The group, mostly women, picketed council offices, occupied pre-fab bungalows due for demolition and staged what was to become the first protest march of the civil rights movement in Dungannon in June 1963.
A year later Patricia contested the local elections with six other nationalists and with a 97 per cent turnout, she and four others were elected. In 1964 the McCluskeys formed the Campaign for Social Justice. Their systematic research and gathering of incontrovertible evidence of discrimination published in their pamphlet The Plain Truth later that year was a turning point that set the ground for the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in 1967.
As a member of Dungannon Council for more than a decade, she campaigned against gerrymandering and discrimination in both housing and jobs.
In Conn McCluskey's book Up Off Their Knees(1989) the late Patsy McCooey gave a description of Patricia in the introduction. "In her wide-brimmed hat and striking costume, she headed a parade of homeless young mothers, their babies and prams, through Dungannon and strode right into the conscience of a people and into the history of our times."
Born in 1914 in Portadown, the daughter of a local draper, Patricia McShane went to Scotland after leaving school to train as a home economics teacher, working with disadvantaged children.
When the second World War started, she helped to organise the evacuation of children to rural homes. It was on a holiday back home in Ireland that she met and later married Conn McCluskey.
After their marriage, they lived in Keady and then Dungannon where Conn practised as a doctor. After their daughters were raised, she threw herself into politics.
In a speech to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland, Bríd Rodgers said: “Many of the younger generation may not realise that in some measure they owe the status of equality that they now take for granted to the sacrifices of a general practitioner in Dungannon and his wife.”
After Conn retired, the McCluskeys travelled to Australia where he worked for a time as a GP and they continued to travel extensively for many years before they returned to live in Dublin.
Patricia McCluskey is survived by Conn and three daughters, Sheila, Margaret and Darine.
Patricia McCluskey: born March 17th 1914, died December 9th 2010