The funeral for the late Nell McCafferty will be held this Friday in St. Columba’s Church, Longtower, Derry, it has been confirmed.
The trailblazing feminist writer and activist passed away peacefully at Beech Hill Care Nursing Home this morning, aged 80.
Nell’s remains will be reposing at her sister Carmel’s residence, 43 Belmont Crescent from 3:30pm this afternoon, Wednesday, 21st August.
Funeral leaving from there on Friday, 23rd August, at 11:45am for 12:30pm Requiem Mass in St. Columba’s Church, Longtower. A private cremation will take place afterwards in Lakelands Crematorium, Co. Cavan. Wake house will be private from 10pm in the evenings.
The obituary notice requests no flowers please, donations in lieu, if desired, to The Foyle Hospice c/o the immediate family or Mr. Kieran Connor, McClafferty Funeral Directors, Unit 3a, Rathmor Business Pk, Derry, BT48 0LZ.
Nell McCafferty, formerly of 8 Beechwood Street, Derry, was one of Ireland’s most outspoken female voices.
She was born in 1944 in Derry’s Bogside and graduated from Queen’s University in Belfast and then studied in France.
She became a journalist in her 20s and authored many books, including ‘Nell’, ‘In the Eyes of the Law’ and ‘The best of Nell’.
She worked for numerous publications down through the years including Irish Times, the Sunday Tribune and Hot Press and was a regular panellist on radio and television programmes.
Ms McCafferty was a founding member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement.
She became an outspoken advocate for women’s rights, the poor and for people who suffered injustice.
She was prominent in campaigns and issues that received national and international attention including Bloody Sunday, the Kerry Babies cases and sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church.
In a tribute, President Michael D Higgins described her as “a pioneer in raising those searching questions which could be asked, but which had been buried, hidden or neglected.”
“Nell had a unique gift in stirring people’s consciousness, and this made her advocacy formidable on behalf of those who had been excluded from society. A defining feature across Nell’s life was such a fierce drive to tackle repression, poverty and authoritarianism wherever she saw it.
“Across so many areas, including her work on the Kerry Babies case captured in her book ‘A Woman to Blame’, the Troubles, her own life experience and so many other areas beside, Nell’s writing remains a compelling and courageous record of those decades.”
Ms McCafferty was the beloved daughter of the late Lily & Hugh McCafferty. Sister of Carmel and the late Muireanna, Nuala, Hugh and Paddy.