Funeral of Nell McCafferty to take place on Friday

Olivia Kelleher

The funeral of Derry journalist, author, feminist and campaigner Nell McCafferty will take place Friday in Longtower in her home city.

She died in the early hours of Wednesday at a nursing home in Fahan, Co Donegal following a long illness.

President Michael D Higgins led the tributes to Ms McCafferty following her passing.

He said that she was a “pioneer” in raising those “searching questions” which could be asked, but which had been “buried, hidden or neglected.”

“Indeed, this is one of the aspects which was most remarkable from the very beginning in her work.

"Nell had a unique gift for stirring people’s consciousness, and this made her advocacy formidable on behalf of those who had been excluded from society. A defining feature across Nell’s life was such a fierce drive to tackle repression, poverty and authoritarianism wherever she saw it.

"Across so many areas, including her work on the Kerry Babies case captured in her book ‘A Woman to Blame’, the Troubles, her own life experience and so many other areas beside, Nell’s writing remains a compelling and courageous record of those decades.

"As a writer and activist, including as a co-founder of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement, Nell McCafferty played a vital role and leaves a true legacy in fighting for feminism and women’s rights across the island.”

Nell was predeceased by her parents and several of her siblings. She is lying in repose at the home of her sister Carmel in Belmont Crescent in Derry on Thursday.

A requiem mass for Nell will take place tomorrow (Thursday) at 12.30pm in St Columba’s Church in Longtower.

A private cremation will follow in Lakelands Crematorium, Co Cavan.

Mourners are asked to make donations in lieu of flowers, if desired, to The Foyle Hospice, the immediate family or Kieran Connor, McClafferty Funeral Directors, Unit 3a, Rathmor Business Pk, Derry, BT48 0LZ.