The Origins and Early Years of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition

Abstract

, women in Northern Ireland were virtually absent from national political life. Rarely did the major parties in either the nationalist or the Unionist community grant women a meaningful voice in policy decisions, or serious leadership roles in the formal political process. During its fifty-year existence, only nine women served in the Northern Ireland Parliament (Stormont). Of the eighteen Northern Ireland MPs elected to the United Kingdom Parliament at Westminster in June, , three are women; only three others have ever sat at Westminster since the creation of Northern Ireland in . No Northern Ireland woman has yet been elected to the European Parliament. Gender discrimination in Ulster’s political life derives from several sources. From  to , Northern Ireland was ruled directly by the British government, the result of unrelenting civil and sectarian strife known in the province as the “Troubles.” A quarter of a century of sectarian violence certainly discouraged many women from trying to enter the formal political system, as public officials were frequently targets for both the Irish Republican Army and for Protestant paramilitaries. More important, polarization between the two communities bred mutual suspicion between Catholic and Protestant women, undermining their potential for collective political action.1 During the s and early s, women channeled their civic energies into community-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and avoided traditional political mechanisms. As one activist put it, “ What passes for politics in Northern Ireland is limited and the base for formal political participation is very narrow, structured as it is by both community divisions and violence.”2 Northern Ireland was, as one activist described it, an “armed patriarchy.” 3 Constance B. Rynder