Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey

This is my first blog. Not sure exactly what I 'll be doing, basically offering my thoughts on various political issues, some history, etc. I'm an American democratic socialist (democratic marxist/left-wing social-democratic), and more or less an Irish Republican (I largely support Sinn Fein).

I'm not sure it was the best idea to name the blog after a living person (thank god she's still with us!!) (it was originally named after Bernadette devlin-McAliskey) and I'll change it if she requessts it, but my ultimate favorite hero is Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey, whose politics largely (not totally) reflect what this blog will be about- socialism, republicanism, and opposition to bigotry (we disagree about SF and the GFA and I doubt she uses the term "social democrat" to describe herself and there's probably some more disagreements when you get into the details and/or look around the world).

the Wikipedia page about her is here.

She was a major leader of the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland, and was with the Peoples' Democracy, a student, militant and left-wing section of the CRM. She took part in the 1969 Belfast-Derry march by PD (there's more about that in the first 3rd of this), which was based on the Selma-Montgomery march in the American South. Over 3-4 days they were repeatedly attacked by loyalist/unionist (Protestant/pro-British) militants and given a hero's welcome in Derry.

In April 1969, she was elected as a Unity candidate to the Westminster Parliament from Mid-Ulster. In Aug. of 1969, when the police, followed by a loyalist mob, tried invading the Catholic Bogside neighborhood in Derry, they were repulsed by local youth, with Devlin providing great encouragement. She ended up serving a brief jail sentence for her role.

She remained an active leader of the civil rights movement and was present at the Bloody Sunday shootings in Jan. 1972. The next day, in Parliament, when she wasn't allowed to speak despite having witnessed the event under discussion and a British Minister justified the shootings, she hit him.

She lost her seat in the 1974 Westmisnter election (she stood as an Independent Socialist) when the Social Democratic and Labour Party ran a candidate and split the anti-Unionist vote, allowing a Unionist to win.

In 1974 she helped found the Irish Republican Socialist Party with Seamus Costello. She left a year later when she felt that the armed wing, the Irish National Liberation Army, was being given priority. However she spoke fondly of Costello when he was killed in 1977.

In 1979 she ran for the European Parliament, largely as a supporter of IRA and INLA prisoners who were demanding status as prisoners of war. In 1981, largely because of her work in support of the prisoners, loyalist paramilitaries almost killed her and her husband (she was one of very top leaders of the movement to support the prisoners). For more on the prisoners issue, see the middle third of this.

In 1988, when a coalition of people who had been involved in the civil rights movement in the late sixties organized to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the civil rights movement, she wrote and narrated a documentary called "OFF OUR KNEES: 1968-1988 From Civil Rights to National Liberation."

More recently she has become fairly (or perhaps very) critical of Sinn Fein and is an opponent, on republican and socialist, not militarist grounds, of the Good Friday Agreement. She continues to be active in various efforts of republican, socialist, and generally progressive causes (anti-raccism, feminism, gay rights, etc.). (I largely support SF and the GFA, but she does not).

In addition to the above, what I also greatly admire about her is that when she first came to the United States (and on subsequent visits) she continued to support progressive causes. Most importantly, even though her first visit involved fund-raising (mostly) from Irish-Americans in 1969, she stood up against racism consistently. For example, when she was given the key to the city of New York, she passed it on to the Black Panther Party. On another trip here, in 1971, she met with Angela Davis in jail. In 2003 the Bush administration had her deported, because, as Anthony McIntyre put it, she knew too much and said it too well.

UPDATE 6/2/14 I left out two other examples: 1) at an event in Boston on her first trip here, there was some disturbance caused by opponents of integration in America and she made it clear how she felt about that, and 2) when speaking in Washington DC on her first trip, she pointed out to the audience that there was a huge disconnect between how black the district was and how white the audience was. (there are more examples on the wikipedia page, which is probably accurate)

Anyway, that's a good intro to one of Ireland's top 3 republican-socialists ever. Like I said, I named the blog after her because it will mostly reflect her politics.