When Bernadette Devlin Fought For Her Soul: The Life Of An Irish Revolutionary

Aisha Munir

It grew to several hundred strong but was met with strong opposition, with Unionists throwing stones and glass bottles. When this happened in Derry, Devlin stood up and declared the city ‘the capital of injustice.’ After the march, she finally declared herself a socialist. Her outspokenness during the marches and protests led her to become a well-known figure and in April 1969, she was voted in as the Member of Parliament for Mid-Ulster at the age of 21, the youngest MP ever elected until 2015.

Referring to both working-class Catholics and Protestants, she took aim at the so-called democracy in the Tory government and the Unionists, declaring in her maiden speech: “There is no place for us in the society of landlords because we are the ‘havenots’ and they are the ‘haves’... we were beaten into the Catholic area because it was in the interests of the Unionist Party to establish that we were nothing more than a Catholic uprising.”

Bernadette Devlin wrote this as part of the foreword for her autobiography, published when she was just 21 in 1969. The ‘movement’ she refers to is the civil rights movement she was part of in the North of Ireland in the 60s and 70s. Devlin was born in 1947 to a working-class Catholic family in Cookstown, Tyrone. Tyrone was a predominantly Catholic county, but Cookstown was mixed. She described the tension between Republicans, who believe in a united Ireland, and Unionists, who support British involvement to create a ‘unified’ state.

Growing up, she got her “political feelings” from her father and a “martyr complex” from her Christian mother, and in answer to how she became a socialist, life made her one. She did not name herself a socialist until later in life. At Queen’s university, searching for an ideology to help her codify the environment she was raised in, she was disappointed to find many of the student political parties were involved in high-brow intellectual discussion, irrelevant to society as she knew it.

For her, the history of religious conflict had now shifted into something more political. Yes, those who owned the houses in places like Derry were Protestant, but politics meant they got more votes due to their position as landlords. Even the so-called Protestant state touted by the Unionist Party was reserved only for the Protestant rich. The people, instead of being united against their awful conditions, were divided over religious issues.

Her demands became simply “jobs and houses for everyone.” Devlin rejected the binaries imposed on Ireland - Catholic/Protestant or republican/unionist - instead of analysing it from a socialist perspective. Devlin understood where previous Irish socialists had gone wrong and she was not prepared to make the same mistakes. She ended up creating her own student group. The story goes that John. D. Murphy took the group’s poster to print and, realising they had no name, styled them “People’s Democracy”. On New Year’s Day 1969, PD began a four-day civil rights march - the “Long March of January” - from Belfast to Derry, inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s “March on Selma”.

Her speech was praised as courageous, outstanding, and fiery. Though overall, she found Westminster to be a sham, with people who didn’t care to change what they knew was happening: “[There are] no politics outside the Chamber. [Tory and Labour members] both go to the same club and the same parties with the same friends.”

The Battle of the Bogside, 12-14th August 1969, showed the world the violence the Catholic community were facing. A photo captured of Devlin shows her masked, standing next to Paddy Coyle, the 13-yearold who was the subject of the famous “Petrol Bomber” mural.

August 22 1969 saw her begin her tour of America. The Black Power movement had already influenced the civil rights movement in Ireland. Devlin criticised Irish-Americans who opposed the struggle for African-American rights in the U.S. but supported the fight for civil rights in Ireland.

She returned to Ireland disillusioned by Irish-America but her relationship with the Black Panther Party remained strong. The key to New York City, which she’d been gifted, was, on her behalf, presented to the Black Panthers. In 1971, she would visit Angela Davis in prison who would, in turn, support Devlin’s daughter in the 90’s.

Devlin was also present during Bloody Sunday, where thirteen people were killed. She narrated hearing the first shot fired from her left side – the place where, later, the Saville inquiry stated the British paratroopers were stood – and described the traumatic aftermath.

As she was still an MP, she was rushed to Parliament as an emergency debate was called. Ordinarily, the MP who has an immediate interest in the matter should be the first to speak. But she was repeatedly denied her ‘right’ to speak and when the Home Secretary – who she dubs “The Liar” - claimed the paratroopers fired in self-defence, she crossed the room and slapped him.

Today, Devlin works with the organisation she helped found: STEP, a community development scheme in Tyrone. She has survived being shot 14 times in assassination attempts and continues to seek justice and work towards her goals.