On Friday, August 23, hundreds of people gathered in Derry to attend the funeral of journalist, feminist and LGBTQ+ campaigner Nell McCafferty, who passed away aged 80.

Born in Derry in 1944, Nell McCafferty was a renowned writer, as well as a fierce advocate for the most marginalised groups in Ireland. She was a founding member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement and wrote extensively about women’s rights, poverty and social injustices in Ireland between the 1960s and 1970s.

The journalist passed away in the early hours of Wednesday morning, August 21, at a nursing home in Co Donegal, as confirmed by her family. Among those who attended her funeral were President Michael D Higgins and Taoiseach Simon Harris, as well as Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill.

A diverse group of people was present at the funeral, including journalists, politicians, fellow civil rights campaigners and friends and family. Five of McCafferty’s friends, including civil rights activist Bernadette McAliskey, carried Pride flags on the grounds of the church, while many others wore t-shirts promoting LGBTQ+ rights or badges for Palestine.

Nell McCafferty (1944-2024)
Fierce, funny, a ferocious intellect, a huge heart, she permitted me to call her “Gorgeous”. And she was.

But forget platitudes. At the heart of Nell is her writing the truth about ourselves. She sold 100,000s of books because she told the truth. pic.twitter.com/3ymkdKmE66

— Alan Hayes : Arlen House (@ArlenHouse) August 21, 2024

Veteran civil rights campaigner and journalist Eamonn McCann, McCafferty’s lifelong friend, was entrusted with leading the tributes before the funeral mass started. In his address, he said: “Nell did change the world, and in the course of that she entranced as many women as she alarmed men… they had never seen or heard the like of her”.

She fought “for women’s rights, for the rights of gay people, for the rights of downtrodden,” McCann went on to say. “Nell McCafferty changed Ireland, and changed Ireland for the better, and she came from the Bogside to do that.”

Recounting how they had been friends from a young age and had thus spent their life together, McCann spoke about the “outpouring of praise” for McCafferty in recent days following her death. “Although the newspapers are full of praise for Nell now”, the campaigner explained that this was not always the case.

“Ireland is a different and a better place for the fact that Nell McCafferty was in it. At last, she gets the recognition she deserves,” he added.

In the conclusion of his address, McCann recalled how McCafferty had written an article about Bloody Sunday for The Starry Plough “before the smoke had even cleared from the street”.

He read the article out loud for the crowd, with the last lines saying: “Let it be said of them with pride that they died on their feet, and not on their knees. Let it not be said of us that they died in vain. Stay free, brothers and sisters. There will be another day.”

“And so there will,” Mr McCann concluded. “There will be another day. But there will never be another Nell McCafferty.”

Nell McCafferty. What a woman. What a trailblazer. The women of Ireland have a lot to be thankful for, for her service to us all. Sisters and brothers. RIP. (with my mother & Maeve Binchy) pic.twitter.com/xle4qK9xuz

— Abby Green ☘️ (@abbygreen3) August 21, 2024

As people all over Ireland continue to mourn the legendary journalist, writer Ger Moane penned a poem on the occasion of Nell’s 80th birthday, which she sent to GCN as a tribute to the LGBTQ+ campaigner.

In Memory of Nell

You burst into the world in nineteen forty-four
A bright and bonny Derry Girl
Soon to be fiercely feminist, a fiery Irish amazon.
Defying Church and State, you dared so much.
Igniting the women’s liberation movement,
Risking prison to bring condoms from Belfast,
Mocking the golden balls of the pro-lifers
And excoriating them for the Kerry Babies case.
Your brilliant writing and caustic wit allowing you to say so much.

You had women lovers in the seventies, now that was daring.
You spoke at the first National Gay Conference in the eighties.
You fell in love with Nuala and for all your fiery passion
You found it hard to say the word ‘lesbian’,
And for all that you didn’t say it, we knew.
And then you spelled it all out in two thousand and four
When you wrote your life story at the age of sixty.
You told the nation on the Late Late Show of
Your fears of being gay, your love for Nuala.
‘The word lesbian rang out like a rifle shot’, you said.

It was love for your mother, and Nuala, that stopped you, you said,
But it was so much more than that.
It was hard to come out in nineteen seventy
When we met in quiet pubs and underground clubs.
It was hard to come out in nineteen eighty
When Church and State pilloried us from every side.
And it was still hard in nineteen ninety
When homosexuality continued to be criminalized..

And here we are eighty years later
And still we quake to come out to our family
Hoping for a hug that might not come
Hoping we won’t get asked to leave home.
We’ve come such a long way, but still –
It is daring to come out.

So thank you Nell
For your courage and contradictions
Your honesty and your secrets
Your struggles that are our struggles.