Awesome Stuff Women Did

The youngest woman ever to have been elected to British Parliament having been elected at the age of 21, she stood on the slogan “I will take my seat and fight for your rights” – signalling her rejection of the traditional Irish republican tactic of abstentionism (being absent from Westminster). Publicised discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland. Convicted of incitement to riot in December 1969 after the ‘Battle of the Bogside’, and was re-elected in the 1970 general election. After witnessing the events of Bloody Sunday, punched Reginald Maudling, the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the Conservative government, when he made a statement to Parliament on Bloody Sunday stating that the British Army had fired only in self-defence. Helped to form the Irish Republican Socialist Party, a revolutionary socialist breakaway from Official Sinn Féin. Survived an assassination attempt by the “Ulster Freedom Fighters”. (Bernadette Devlin)