Nell McCafferty RIP

[MarieDeGournay]

Nell McCafferty: journalist and feminist campaigner dies aged 80
Derry woman was founding member of Irish Women’s Liberation Movement and wrote about social injustice
Nell McCafferty: journalist and feminist campaigner dies aged 80 – The Irish Times

Just yesterday I dithered in a secondhand bookshop as I tried to remember whether I already had a copy of A Woman To Blame. RIP Nell.

I particularly remember all the work she did reporting from the courts. Like Paddy O'Gorman, she was driven by a fierce sense of the need for social justice. Intelligence and engagement and a sense of humour and that wonderful gravelly Derry voice.

I also liked (though have not yet followed) her tip for not getting paint on your clothes when decorating the house,

A strong and brave woman. She needed to be for the time and place she lived. The condoms and IUDs train from Belfast caper sounds like great fun.

An amazing woman who did so much for women's rights and raising awareness of all sorted of injustices. She was a great character and I always enjoyed her being interviewed. RIP Nell you were an inspiration to a generation of Irish women.

I'm surprisingly saddened. A great woman.

Her court reports were indeed wonderful, DeanElderberry. She saw the humanity in everyone, victim, perpetrator -everyone. She could understand, without condoning or condemning. A rare gift.
Suamhneas síoraí di, agus í ag leanúint ar aghaidh ar shlí na fírinne, an slí a shiúil sí i gcónaí.

This sad news makes me realised I dont know as much as I should about her.

But as mentioned up thread heard about the Contraception Train later and thought how fantastic it was. This is a short clip from BBC news about it

I hope that all those remembering her will not only celebrate what she achieved but inspire wome who may not have hear of her.

RIP

Glad to see someone started a thread about Nell. She was an amazing lady to achieve what she did. Have a listen to Joe Duffy from yesterday, its very interesting.
since i heard of her death i have been thinking how things have changed in relation to women's rights since Nell was in her prime. She was one of those who brought the basics but I sometimes wonder how far have we actually come.
May she rest in peace. Nì bheidh a leithead ann arìs is certainly true.

I’m taken aback by how sad I am. She was a heroine. Even when I was a small child and didn’t have the remotest idea about the IWLM,Troubles, the pill train etc etc, it was formative to see this small, truculent, articulate woman arguing men down on the Late Late Show. There was no one like her in my life (my mother hated her because she ‘didn’t make the most of herself’ and was too confident — Sinéad O’Connor had the same effect later on) and she was an important example of what women could be. RIP, Nell.

One of the funny things on the radio yesterday was multiple men admitting they were absolutely terrified of her when she challenged them, as she always did, on principle, whereas the women expressed admiration of her being challenging and terrifying. Same experience, different responses. (I've seen something similar wrt G Greer.)

The 'pill train' thing did feed disinformation. The pill was never illegal in Ireland (I was in convent school with a girl generally known to be on it, in the mid 70s) but you had to have a GP who would prescribe it as a 'cycle regulator' and a pharmacist who would dispense it.

Which is not to reduce the importance of those women making a public point about the right to import other forms of contraceptives for personal use.

Owning and using many forms of contraception wasn’t illegal, no, but as it was illegal to sell or import them (with some loopholes used by family planning clinics and very occasional pharmacists), they were out of reach for the vast majority of the population. The pill train was useful in amplifying the issue publicly after Mary Robinson was refused permission to introduce a bill to liberalise contraception laws for debate in the Seanad earlier the same year.

And yes, later in the 70s, the Health and Family Planning Act, legalised contraception for ‘bone fide’ family planning purposes or on genuine health grounds, but you still needed a liberal GP and a liberal pharmacy. Easier to access if you were middle class and/or educated enough to know you had choices, but my GP and my mother went to the same prayer group, and even when I started university the only woman GP attached to the university refused to prescribe the pill on grounds of conscience.

Yes indeed, I remember it well, but my point was that the pill was never included in the legislation that restricted access to barrier contraceptives and spermicides.

Ultimately the thing that changed it all wasn't any decision to let women control their fertility, it was AIDS. Protecting men's health. For a little while the easiest was of getting condoms, if you were in the know, was to have a pal who'd pick them up in the Hirschfeld centre where they were given away free.

Anyhow, RIP Nell - are there any voices like hers now, stroppy, uncompromising, working class, well educated and informed, speaking their truth? Or have managerialism and the advertising industry succeeded in muting them?

RIP Nell, only death could silence that woman. Hope she is causing mischief somewhere.

It just occurred to me to wonder where she went to secondary school, and of course it was the Derry Girls school.

She was an amazing woman. I loved seeing her on TV challenging the establishment. She was my feminist hero from the early 80's when I first came across her. She was, I believe, partly responsible for me becoming a committed feminist.

I have never been upset before at a celebrity/well known person dying beyond feeling a general "oh, that's sad". I'm surprised by how upset at her death given I never even met her. Although she would always have been on my list of famous people you would like to have at a dinner party.

She will be sadly missed but her voice carries on in those of us she influenced

A friend of mine hosted her at a speaker dinner at Oxford in the 80s and said she behaved memorably badly and was unspeakably brilliant. She has a blurry old photo of somewhere of her and Nell drinking pints in a punt. I agree, @OchonAgusOchonOh (appropriate name in the circumstances) that she’s one of the very few well-known people whose death has genuinely saddened me, but also that her influence was incalculable.

I remember her on ‘The Late, Late Show’ at the same time as Shirley SC has a book out. SC was waxing lyrical about how a woman could just wear a flattering bikini and becoming silk scarf while painting (or other odd jobs). Stuff like this was in the book, I presume. Nell piped up how she painted in her knickers and bra, with a shower cap. SC was very hostile, and I seem to recall Gay seeming to admonish Nell for not being suitable gushing about the talk of women expending energy on making themselves attractive (at all times, and to men, I presume).

Blinkin’ heck, Deanelderberry. I am even more cross than usual, now. All the consequences for women, and it was men’s health which paved the way.

MarieDeGournay · Yesterday 16:27

Suamhneas síoraí di, agus í ag leanúint ar aghaidh ar shlí na fírinne, an slí a shiúil sí i gcónaí.

I will translate ... or Auntie Google will!
Eternal peace to her, as she continues in the way of truth, the way she has always walked.

I don't remember Nell ever mentioning the glass ceiling...

We can leave that to the well educated, well heeled , career driven sistas who probably never cleaned their own toilet bowls.

You can crack your head if you fall down a toilet bowl.

Trudy Hayes - I'm paraphrasing.

Thanks for that, I should have provided the translation - the emotion of the moment made me forget.

The phrase 'imithe ar slí na fírinne' is used in Irish to say someone has died, and it means 'gone on the way of truth'. As an atheist with no belief in an afterlife, I like it very much, it's not religious but it is very traditional. And so appropriate for Nell.