The only Liberal Party MP in the 51-year history of the Northern Irish parliament
Sheelagh Murnaghan:"In Northern Ireland politics, I don’t know which is the greatest obstacle: to be a woman, a Catholic or a Liberal. I am all three."She was the first female barrister to practise in Northern Ireland, a talented sportswoman who played hockey for Ulster and Ireland, and the only Liberal Party MP in the 51-year history of the Northern Irish parliament.
In 1959, she joined the cross-community Ulster Liberal Party, standing unsuccessfully for Belfast South in the October 1959 British general election. But in a 1961 byelection, she was returned to Stormont for Queen’s University constituency, the only Liberal politician ever to be elected to that parliament. “In Northern Ireland politics, I don’t know which is the greatest obstacle: to be a woman, a Catholic or a Liberal.
Sheelagh Murnaghan served on the first Northern Ireland Community Relations Commission and following the introduction of direct rule from Westminster in March 1972, William Whitelaw, secretary of state, appointed her to his special advisory committee. Afterwards, she chaired national-insurance and industrial-relations tribunals and, continuing her support for Travellers, was chair of the Belfast Settlement Committee.
According to her biographer Ruth Illingworth , she was seen as somewhat eccentric, smoking cigars, drinking brandy, and arriving at tribunal hearings with a bundle of papers under one arm and a dog under the other.
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