Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

Bernadette Devlin (1986)

Josephine Bernadette McAliskey , b. Devlin (born April 23, 1947 in Cookstown , Northern Ireland ) is a Northern Irish political activist and politician. She became involved in the Northern Ireland conflict on the Irish Republican and socialist side from 1968 and was a member of parliament from 1969–1974, where she appeared as an independent socialist from 1970.

Life

Bernadette Devlin was of Catholic-Irish descent and studied psychology at Queen's University in Belfast. In 1968 she joined a student civil rights movement and was subsequently excluded from studying. In 1969 she won a by-election to the British House of Commons as a candidate for the Unity alliance and at the age of 21 became the youngest MP in British history until 2015. In 1970 she defended her constituency in the regular elections and then appeared in Parliament as an independent socialist. In 1974 she lost the constituency. In 1969 she was involved in the Battle of Bogside in Derry . In the European elections in 1979 she ran and won 5.9% of the vote in Northern Ireland, although Sinn Féin had called for an election boycott. In 1981/82 she supported the Irish hunger strike .

On January 16, 1981, terrorists from the Ulster Freedom Fighters broke into her home and shot her and her husband numerous times in front of their children. Both were critically injured, but survived the assassination attempt.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Nicholas Whyte: The 1979 European elections. CAIN, April 18, 2004, accessed May 26, 2007 . 
2. ^ Jack Holland: A View North Anniversaries recall the rise of Sinn Féin. The Irish Echo , March 7, 2001, archived from the original on September 28, 2007 ; Retrieved May 26, 2007 .