Bernadette Devlin McAliskey was born in 1947 in a majority Catholic / Nationalist town called Cookstown. Her father, John Devlin, taught her Irish history and instilled Republican ideas into her mind. However, it was after he died, leaving Bernadette's mother Elizabeth to raise six children, including nine-year-old Bernadette, on welfare, that Bernadette truly understood and believed in the injustice of British rule over Northern Ireland.

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In 1965, Bernadette began studying psychology at Queens University. Elizabeth Devlin raised her children to value education, knowing it was their only way out of poverty. Thus, when Elizabeth Devlin passed away, leaving Bernadette to care for her younger siblings at the age of nineteen, the thought of leaving school to attend to her siblings and household duties did not even cross Bernadette’s mind. In addition, Bernadette joined the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in a march from Coalisland to Dungannan, participated in a 1969 civil rights march from Belfast to Derry, and founded the People’s Democracy, a socialist student group concerned with the civil rights cause. That same year, Bernadette became the youngest woman to be elected to Parliament at the age of 21. During her term at Westminster, she was convicted and imprisoned for her leadership role in the Battle of the Bogside, a Catholic/Nationalist community uprising in Derry’s impoverished Bogside, which created an effective “No-Go Area” for the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Protestant Unionist Loyalist police force in the North of Ireland. She then published her autobiography, The Price of My Soul, and continued leading civil rights marches, including the one on January 30th, 1972, which led to the Bloody Sunday massacre in which 14 unarmed protestors were gunned down in cold blood by the British Parachute Regiment. Bloody Sunday from Bernadette’s perspective is illustrated in the upcoming narrative based on interviews with Bernadette Devlin. The day after Bloody Sunday, during an emergency debate surrounding the event, Home Secretary Reginald Maulding made a statement that the paratroopers fired in self-defense. In response, Bernadette crossed the House of Commons floor and smacked the Home Secretary, a famous act Bernadette is well-remembered for.

Bernadette’s activism comes to a slow down after she and her husband are shot and badly wounded in their home by Ulster Freedom Fighters in 1981. The attack—like many on Catholic civilians—is highly suspected of involving collusion between Loyalist paramilitaries and the British State. Later, Bernadette co-founded the South Tyrone Empower Program (STEP) which aids migrants, single parents, and people with physical disabilities. She works there to this day, engaging in grassroots community empowerment and rights advocacy.

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