The phrase "a formidable woman" could have been invented for Inez McCormack. The new ICTU president, the first woman in the post for nearly half a century, is a passionate feminist and socialist, a powerful orator, a determined union organiser, and above all a single-minded fighter for the rights and interests of the lowest-paid workers in Northern Ireland, most of them women.
She was introduced on several occasions to President Clinton, during his first visit to the North, as "the most important woman in Northern Ireland". One senior trade unionist, not a particular fan, this week called her "one of the sharpest brains in the Irish trade union movement".
Above all she is a leader. A Belfast community worker tells the story of an ICTU peace rally last year, after the sectarian murder of an outstanding community worker, Terry Enright.
A very angry crowd had come from west Belfast and "there could have been a riot. Three speakers tried to calm them but only antagonised them. Then Inez got up and she was inspirational. Her use of words was remarkable. It was unbelievable how as a woman she took control of the situation. You could physically feel the tension being removed from people."
She is also that very rare Northern animal, a nationalist from a Protestant background. Born 53 years ago in the middle-class town of Holywood, Co Down, she left school at 16 to work as a typist in the civil service, before going on to TCD and Queen's.
Her socialism dates from the radical 1960s, when she also met her husband, a writer and psychology lecturer, Vincent McCormack, a founder member of Derry Labour Party and a civil rights activist. As a "puzzled young Prod" she joined him on the ill-fated Burntollet march from Belfast to Derry in January 1969.
She went on to become a social worker in west Belfast, a shop steward for the National Union of Public Employees, and its first woman officer in 1976. In the late 1970s and early 1980s she led industrial disputes and campaigns against closures and job cuts in the public services, particularly in hospitals and schools which employed large numbers of low-paid women cleaners, home helps and nursing auxiliaries. She managed to unite workers across community lines in these struggles during the worst period of sectarian conflict.
In those days she discovered "there is nothing wrong with anger", and giving the women workers she was organising "the confidence to be angry" as "part of the joy in my life is when you believe in the human spirit and see it come alive".
Her achievements as a union leader are impressive. NUPE has been turned - partly by British union amalgamations but also by her and her women officials' recruiting efforts - from a small male-dominated union into a powerful branch of the huge British white-collar Unison with a 75 per cent female membership. She runs it as an independent republic with no interference from her nominal superiors in London.
McCormack served on Northern Ireland's first Equal Opportunities Commission and Fair Employment Agency, resigning from the latter in 1981 because of its ineffectiveness. As a signatory of the MacBride Principles she lobbied for radical fair employment and affirmative action programmes, which brought her into conflict with the ICTU, which thought MacBride could lead to badly-needed US investment pulling out of the North.
She was one of the main forces behind the successful drive to persuade the British government to adopt the 1991 "Policy Appraisal and Fair Treatment" guidelines, made statutory in the past year, to ensure that all employment policies in Northern Ireland would be proofed against inequality and discrimination on the grounds of gender, religion, race, age and sexual orientation.
More recently she has thrown herself into the development of EU-funded partnerships, always stressing the need for them to be answerable to the poorest in society. She was active in "Making Women Seen and Heard", which involved 300 women's groups in Northern Ireland and the Border counties lobbying to ensure that women in disadvantaged communities were listened to when it came to distributing EU peace package funding.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has sought her views on the Northern situation since the mid-1980s. She is a welcome guest of the Clintons in the White House, and Tony Blair and Mary Robinson are also fans.
Some of her Northern ICTU colleagues are not so enthusiastic. Her outspoken feminism is not popular in male-dominated Northern trade unionism. Her sometimes abrasive style and single-minded determination to pursue her agenda, however praiseworthy, do not make her an easy team player.
Her gift for self-promotion and her skills as a media performer have caused some jealousy. There have been accusations of poaching members from the other main sectoral union, the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance.
Although she is highly regarded in the Republic, some Southern ICTU figures think her combativeness and background in the more adversarial Northern system of industrial relations may not be the qualities required to lead the union movement into sensitive partnership negotiations.
The tradition is that a Northern president defers to Southern colleague in such negotiations. However, McCormack has stressed that she will be no token figurehead.
"Inez is a very focused, very driven person who would not be where she is without an element of ruthlessness," said a Belfast woman who has worked with her. "But she has always been to the fore when it comes to fighting for the poorest of the poor, and for that reason I will always err on the side of admiration for her, rather than criticism."