Josephine Bernadette McAliskey (née Devlin; born 23 April 1947), usually known as Bernadette Devlin or Bernadette McAliskey, is an Irish civil rights leader, and former politician.
1968
She was studying psychology at Queen's University Belfast in 1968 when she took a prominent role in a student-led civil rights organisation, People's Democracy.
Devlin was subsequently excluded from the university.
1969
She served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Ulster in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1974.
Devlin was born in Cookstown, County Tyrone, to a Catholic family, where she was the third eldest of six children born to John James and Elizabeth Bernadette Devlin.
Her father raised her to hold Irish Republican ideals before he died when Bernadette was nine years old.
Subsequently, the family had to depend on welfare to survive, an experience which affected Bernadette deeply.
Bernadette's mother died when Bernadette was nineteen years old, leaving her to partially raise her siblings while also attending university.
She attended St Patrick's Girls Academy in Dungannon.
She stood unsuccessfully against James Chichester-Clark in the 1969 Northern Ireland general election.
When George Forrest, the MP for Mid Ulster, died, she fought the subsequent by-election on the "Unity" ticket, defeating the Ulster Unionist Party candidate, Forrest's widow Anna, and was elected to the Westminster Parliament.
On 22 April 1969, the day before her 22nd birthday, she swore the Oath of Allegiance and made her maiden speech within an hour.
After engaging, on the side of the residents, in the Battle of the Bogside in August, she was convicted of incitement to riot in December 1969, for which she served a short jail term.
Almost immediately after the Battle of the Bogside, Devlin undertook a tour of the United States in August 1969, a trip which generated a significant amount of media attention.
She met with members of the Black Panther Party in Watts, Los Angeles and gave them her support.
She made appearances on Meet the Press and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
At a number of speaking events, she made parallels between the struggle in the U.S. by African-Americans seeking civil rights and Catholics in Northern Ireland, sometimes to the embarrassment of her audience.
During an event in Philadelphia, she had to goad an African-American singer to sing "We Shall Overcome" to the Irish-American audience, many of whom refused to stand for the song.
In Detroit, she refused to take the stage until African-Americans, who were barred from the event, were allowed in.
In New York, Mayor John Lindsay arranged a ceremony to present Devlin with a key to the city of New York.
Devlin, frustrated with conservative elements of the Irish-American community, left the tour to return to Northern Ireland and, believing the freedom of New York should go to the American poor, sent Eamonn McCann to present the key on her behalf to a representative from the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party.
1970
After being re-elected at the 1970 general election, Devlin declared that she would sit in Parliament as an independent socialist.
1972
Having witnessed the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry in 1972, Devlin was infuriated that she was later consistently denied the floor in the House of Commons by the Speaker Selwyn Lloyd, despite the fact that parliamentary convention decreed that any Member of Parliament witnessing an incident under discussion would be granted an opportunity to speak about it therein.
The day following Bloody Sunday, Devlin slapped Conservative Home Secretary Reginald Maudling across the face when he falsely asserted in the House of Commons that the Parachute Regiment had fired in self-defence on Bloody Sunday.
Asked by an all-male press corps if she intended to apologise to Maudling, Devlin said: "I'm just sorry I didn't get him by the throat".
Thirteen years later, former British Prime Minister Edward Heath recalled the event: "I remember very well when an hon. Lady rushed from the Opposition Benches and hit Mr. Maudling. I remember that vividly because I thought that she was going to hit me. She could not stretch as far as that, so she had to make do with him."
Devlin appeared on Firing Line in 1972 to discuss the situation in Northern Ireland.
1974
Devlin helped to form the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) with Seamus Costello in 1974.
This was a revolutionary socialist breakaway from Official Sinn Féin and, later that same day, Costello also created the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) as a split from the Official Irish Republican Army.
1975
Devlin did not join the INLA and while she served on the party's national executive in 1975, she resigned when a proposal that the INLA become subordinate to the party executive was defeated.
1977
In 1977, she joined the Independent Socialist Party, but it disbanded the following year.
1979
Devlin stood as an independent candidate in support of the prisoners on the blanket protest and dirty protest at Long Kesh prison in the 1979 elections to the European Parliament in the Northern Ireland constituency, and won 5.9% of the vote.
1980
She was a leading spokesperson for the Smash H-Block Campaign, which supported the hunger strikes in 1980 and 1981.
1981
On 16 January 1981, Devlin and her husband were attacked by members of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, a cover name of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), who broke into their home near Coalisland, County Tyrone.
The gunmen shot Devlin nine times in front of her children.
British soldiers were watching the McAliskey home at the time, but they failed to prevent the assassination attempt.
Allegations were subsequently made that elements of the security forces had colluded with the UDA in planning the botched assassination.
An army patrol from 3 Para entered the house after waiting outside for half an hour.
2015
Aged 21, she was the youngest MP at the time, and remained the youngest woman ever elected to Westminster until the May 2015 general election when 20-year-old Mhairi Black eclipsed Devlin's achievement.
Devlin stood on the slogan "I will take my seat and fight for your rights" – signalling her rejection of the traditional Irish republican principle of abstentionism.
