Inez McCormack was born September 28, 1943, to a Loyalist, Protestant family in County Down, Northern Ireland. McCormack did not have a traditional Loyalist upbringing and described herself as a “confused young Protestant” growing up in Belfast during the 1950s. And while attending college in Derry and University in Dublin in the 1960s, she witnessed an astonishing amount of corruption and abuse of power that led her to join the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, a movement that, though it aimed to improve the lives of all working-class and poor people across the Protestant/Catholic divide, was painted by Unionist leadership as a Catholic/Nationalist/Republican uprising.

McCormack later became involved with the trade union movement to campaign for the poorest and most neglected workers. At the time, many of these were female part-time workers whom she helped to unionize for better workers’ rights. Throughout her labor rights work during the Troubles, she not only became the first woman National Union of Public Employees official (1976), but she also became the first woman to chair (1984 - 1985) and the first woman President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (1999 - 2001). This paved the way for other women to gain access to similar positions. Due to her extensive peace work, she was influential in the Good Friday Agreement as a proponent of inclusive human rights and equality provision

Overall, Inez was very transformative in her work as she sought to improve the conditions of those who were most neglected. Her work through activism and organization aided in making those communities thrive. The comic below highlights the kind of person Inez was. It is based on a true story about her in which the Royal Victoria Hospital was in a deadlock with the labor union over 9-week-old infected and hazardous laundry. It culminates in McCormack’s dumping of the laundry in both the offices of the hospital's CEO and the Deputy CEO. The story is illustrative of how kind and supportive McCormack was to those in need as well as her willingness to take matters into her own hands, literally.

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Sadly, Inez McCormack passed due to cancer in 2013. However, she leaves behind a legacy of organizations she founded to support women and overlooked communities. One such organization is Participation and Practice of Rights, which builds working-class social justice coalitions (whether for housing rights, the right to work, or mental health access) across all identities in the North of Ireland. Inez will forever be known as a trailblazer that helped people see their true value and gain agency over their lives.