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Mural honouring Nell McCafferty to be unveiled in Derry

The mural is being unveiled as part of events marking International Women's Day
The mural is being unveiled as part of events marking International Women's Day

A mural commissioned in memory of the writer and feminist campaigner Nell McCafferty is due to be officially unveiled in Derry this afternoon.

Nell McCafferty, who died at the age of 80 in August last year, was an outspoken advocate for women's rights, the poor and for people who suffered injustice.

The new mural is located near the Free Derry Corner in the Bogside area of Derry, where Ms McCafferty grew up, and was completed by Peaball Street Art Collective.

It is due to be unveiled today as part of events marking International Women's Day.

The mural depicts Ms McCafferty alongside the words 'Goodnight Sisters’, the phrase she used to sign off at the end of television appearances and also the title of two volumes of her writings.

Ms McCafferty first became involved in politics during the civil rights movement.


Read more: McCafferty family 'humbled and comforted' by tributes


She then moved to Dublin where she worked first with the Irish Times and then as a freelance journalist.

Ms McCafferty was a founding member of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement and authored many books, including 'Nell', 'In the Eyes of the Law' and 'The Best of Nell'.

She was seen by many as the face and voice of Irish feminism for a time, and was notably part of the group of women who travelled from Dublin to Belfast in May 1971 on the so-called "contraceptive train" to buy contraceptives in Belfast.

In paying tribute to Ms McCafferty following her death, President Michael D Higgins said she 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".