Date of birth: 28th March 1944
Departed: 21st August 2024
“Nell” was the title of her memoir, a name she was recognised by. A petite, resilient presence possessing a spirit that was combative in nature. Her unmistakable characteristics – a mass of curly hair, cigarette smoke lingering around her, a sardonic grin, and her distinct gait reminiscent of a mariner on dry land. Nearly everyone was familiar with that signature Derry brogue; detached, defiant, and frequently punctuated by fits of guffaws. Nell was renowned for her unpredictability, her pronouncements often took people by surprise. She was not averse to playing up her persona and was recognised as a key figure in Irish journalism during the last decades of the 20th century. She was discerning and empathetic, honest in her work.
As her friend and historian Margaret Mac Curtain stated, Nell’s coverage of hot-button subjects was unparalleled due to her broad perspective and fearless honesty. To Nell, home held immense value. Her street cred held high prestige. In the notable company of Martin McGuinness, Eamonn McCann, Seamus Deane, Paddy Doherty, John Hume, Dana and Phil Coulter, she was a member of the Bogside elite. Her mother was her greatest endorsement and her most candid critic.
Nell McCafferty was born in the year 1944. Her father, Hugh, functioned as an administrative servant for the British admiralty in the day and managed bookkeeping at the racing circuit by night. Lily, her mother, brought up six children, having lost one daughter at childbirth.
To fend off poverty, the parents put in arduous labour. Nell was captivated yet appalled by the impoverishment of the tenements where her father grew up. One of her paternal uncles was a casualty in the Somme as a British soldier. Her maternal grandparents included Sergeant Duffy, a Catholic RUC officer, and his spouse, Sarah, who was originally a Protestant.
Growing up, she spent her time roaming about the town alongside her pals. Her preference was boys’ company. Trips to Buncrana seaside, which was just across the border, were common and she spent countless hours absorbed in the narratives shared by the women she was surrounded by. She remembered how these neighbourhood ladies used to gather around Ettie Deeney’s doorstep and share tales of life. Despite frequent sickness that included rheumatic fever, asthma, and heart murmurs, she found joy in the comforts of home. Her explorations led her to the public library, which she found marvellous. After breezing through the ’11 plus’ in 1955, she went on to grammar school, passing by those girls who were heading to work in shirt factories, her Thornhill school blazer symbolic of her elevated social status. The school, she commented, was filled with an erotic undercurrent. She delved into Radclyffe Hall’s narrative, ‘The Well of Loneliness’, which filled her heart with fear of persecution and scorn, an expectation that was associated with her ‘inverted’ sexual orientation. However, she was not deterred and fell in love with a fellow girl. The two spent a summer in London, working in Liberty’s, frequenting Carnaby Street, sharing a single bed. When she finally confessed her homosexual orientation to a priest in Derry in 1960, he demanded an oath that she wouldn’t commit such a sin again. She sternly refused and vowed never to go to confession again. Her confession to her parents, led them to entrust her to a nun whom they believed could guide her, added a layer of silence and God to her life. But fortunately, the nun was kind.
Owing to the UK Labour government’s establishment of free tertiary education, McCafferty got the opportunity to pursue an arts degree at Queens University in Belfast. Despite just managing to pass her exams and with her romantic life on hold throughout her study period, she went on to undertake teacher training in 1965. This phase in her life happened to coincide with developing an interest in poker. McCafferty embarked on a journey across France, returned to Derry, didn’t succeed in securing a teaching job, and in 1967, she set off to experience life on a kibbutz in Israel.
On her return to London, she was overwhelmed by loneliness. She went back to Derry just in time to witness the aftermath of the tumultuous riots on October 5th, 1968, and without hesitation, became actively involved: “We vented all the humiliation suppressed over generations by attacking the RUC, the unionist government at Stormont and the British government in London. I felt completely at home” she noted. McCafferty’s mother ran a welcoming household. The gathering included discussants broaching topics ranging from Marxism to petrol bombs, with the likes of McCann, Bernadette Devlin and Mary Holland of the Observer dropping by. McCafferty’s early journalistic endeavours were in the local labour magazine, Ramparts. Jimmy Breslin, who she met during a tour to New York, shrewdly suggested journalism as a lucrative pursuit.
Shorty thereafter, she came into contact with Pyle through Holland. Her left-wing peers criticised the bathroom article as over sentimental and void of Marxist overtones, as she matter-of-factly noted later. Her initial articles communicated effectively to a predominantly middle-class southern audience the arduous daily existence of the working-class in Derry amidst escalating Troubles. Her readers’ moral repugnance was something she anticipated and opposed outrightly, as exemplified by her distressing exploration of the IRA’s custom of publicly humiliating girls who associated with British soldiers.
She bore witness to the horrific massacre on Bloody Sunday in 1972, a day that affected the locals deeply; the impact was such that it was felt etched in their bloodstream. McCafferty’s article profiled the young IRA leader, Martin McGuinness, who was also her neighbour’s son, with deep sympathy.
She gained notoriety for her journalistic work primarily focused on the Republic. During the years 1970 to 1980, she pioneered a series with her hallmark series, In the Eyes of the Law. McCafferty, through expressive, piercing and comedic language painted a striking picture – mentally unstable women, indecisive men, lost children, fragmented families, acquaintances, alcoholics, destitute individuals. A gallery of judicial figures, some fair, others relics of the Victorian era, presided over this pandemonium. She noted the discernible difference between law and justice.
Simultaneously, McCafferty was heavily engaged in the women’s liberation movement, alongside individuals such as Anne O’Donnell, Nuala Fennell, Mary Kenny, June Levine, and Mary Robinson. Her personal life was punctuated with amorous escapades, associations with high-profile feminists and a flamboyant journalist. Together with others, she took part in public marches and speeches nationwide. Notably, she participated in the infamous contraceptive train campaign, transporting contraceptives from Belfast to Dublin in 1971, an act in defiance of the latter’s law. A steady flow of guests occupying her living-room floor and her role as a de facto social worker and charity demonstrated her hospitality and selflessness.
Her persuasive 1980 piece, Armagh is a feminist issue, draws attention to the plight of female republican prisoners in a dirty protest, concluding with a provoking challenge about menstrual blood staining the prison walls. At around this period, she made a decision to branch into novel writing and moved to Cork with her partner. While she completed the novel, her frank self-assessment resulted in it being deemed dull.
Life was not without romance and around this time, McCafferty crossed paths with Nuala O’Faolain, who became her significant other.
Even with financial uncertainties constantly shadowing her, she found profound joy as her personal and public lives finally merged. This state of happiness served as a shield for her against the prevailing misogynistic atmosphere that spread across the nation in the early 1980s. Notable incidents from that era include the constitutional modification related to abortion, the death of teenager Ann Lovett during childbirth, and the public shaming of Joanne Hayes in the “Kerry babies” tribunal.
McCafferty offered insightful commentary on each of these events, enjoying significant editorial freedom working for In Dublin. Her ‘Golden Balls’ piece for the magazine exemplified her astute, yet humorous political satire. Her book chronicling Joanne Hayes’ ordeal was penetrating with its simplicity and sympathy. In 1984, the feminist publisher Attic Press released a compilation of her works, The Best of Nell. On RTÉ’s short-lived Women’s Programme, McCafferty’s characteristic wink and closing remark, “Goodnight sisters,” turned into a symbol for women who were suppressed. Another assortment of her articles was published as ‘Goodnight Sisters’ in 1987.
During a political discussion in 1987, Conor Cruise O’Brien inquired if McCafferty supported the IRA. This was a standard question of the time, with an affirmative response usually signifying political self-destruction. Defiantly, she responded in the affirmative. The subsequent day, an IRA bombing at the War Memorial in Enniskillen resulted in the death of 11 Protestants. Following this incident, McCafferty was barred from RTÉ and was extremely upset. She even offered to relinquish her Irish passport to show unionists that she didn’t have intentions of coercing them into a united Ireland. During these tumultuous times, she authored the book, Peggy Deery An Irish Family at War, which detailed the life of her Derry neighbour injured on Bloody Sunday, who didn’t fully recover.
By 1990, McCafferty had returned to RTE. Her passionate reports on the celebratory aspect of the World Cup bagged her a Jacob’s award. She acknowledged that some perceived this as her initial performance as “Nell, the jester queen”. Her relationship with O’Faolain was growing tense, with their painful parting taking place in 1994. McCafferty took to heart the way O’Faolain portrayed their relationship in her popular memoir, Are You Somebody? A particular interview in which O’Faolain declared she had never viewed Nell as a woman and would always prefer a man to 59 women, left McCafferty devastated.
McCafferty was employed by the Sunday Tribune from 1988 until 2003. She referred to her concluding years there as the most distressing of her career, with her stronger pieces from this time being issued in Hot Press. At a press conference in 2002, she successfully persuaded the heads of the three national maternity hospitals to admit that they could not provide optimal treatment to women carrying babies that would not survive outside the womb, if the new proposed amendment on abortion was ratified. Though this played a significant role in defeating the amendment, the Tribune disallowed McCafferty from writing about it.
During this time, McCafferty’s mother was becoming increasingly feeble, leading McCafferty to split her time between her Dublin residence and her previous home in Derry.
In 2004, McCafferty’s memoir, Nell, was released. Many, including Kathy Sheridan, noted a profound loneliness and a feeling of lifelong social exclusion. Some opined that McCafferty’s mother appeared as the true love of her life in the memoir.
[Reflections on Nell McCafferty: The creation of a new Ireland through one woman’s trialsOpens in new window]
McCafferty’s personal struggle was with her own sexual orientation, specifically revealing her homosexuality to her mother. However, her mother and those around her had been aware of the fact for years. In 2004, Nell decided to revise the conclusion of her book to incorporate a statement showing her peace in self-acceptance, radiating positivity and devoid of any darkness, aside from everyday heartaches.
In spite of being a lifelong smoker and alcohol lover, McCafferty endured a heart attack in the spring of 2006, requiring emergency triple bypass surgery to survive. During the campaign to abolish the 8th Amendment, many of her comments were seen as off-putting to younger feminist groups, occasionally catering to the disadvantageous traits of a crowd. This led to the loss of friendships, leading some to believe she was experiencing severe fatigue. The sharpness of her intellect seemed to be dwindling.
She spent her final years in her hometown of Derry, transitioning to a nursing home with views of Lough Swilly in Co Donegal during her last days. Despite losing previous friendships, many old acquaintances visited her there, and there were indications of her brilliance in unexpected moments. Her old friend and accomplished writer and civil rights activist, McCann, remembered her unfriendly responses to his recollections of their childhood football games. McCann acknowledged her influence on Ireland.
President Michael D Higgins, in his tribute, admired her fearless and ethical journalism efforts across eight decades, standing for those powerless. Seamas O’Reilly, a fellow Derry writer, admired McCafferty’s tenacity, enduring denunciation for standing on the correct side of history. He recognized her legacy in shaping the future. Unfortunately, she succumbed to a protracted illness at the age of 80.