12 Facts About Nell McCafferty

Ellen Pamela McCafferty was an Irish journalist, playwright, civil rights campaigner and feminist.

Nell McCafferty wrote for The Irish Press, The Irish Times, Sunday Tribune, Hot Press and The Village Voice.

Nell McCafferty was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, to Hugh and Lily Nell McCafferty, a devout Catholic, and spent her early years in the Bogside area of the city.

Nell McCafferty was admitted to Queen's University Belfast where she earned a degree in Arts.

Nell McCafferty was a founding member of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement.

Nell McCafferty's journalistic writing on women and women's rights reflected her beliefs on the status of women in Irish society.

Nell McCafferty contributed the piece "Coping with the womb and the border" to the 1984 anthology Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology, edited by Robin Morgan.

In 1990, Nell McCafferty won a Jacob's Award for her reports on the 1990 World Cup for RTE Radio 1's The Pat Kenny Show.

Nell McCafferty caused a controversy in 2010 with a declaration in a live Newstalk radio interview that the then Minister for Health, Mary Harney, was an alcoholic.

Nell McCafferty received an honorary doctorate of literature from University College Cork on 2 November 2016 for "her unparalleled contribution to Irish public life over many decades and her powerful voice in movements that have had a transformative impact in Irish society, including the feminist movement, campaigns for civil rights and for the marginalised and victims of injustice".

Nell McCafferty was in a fifteen-year relationship with the journalist Nuala O'Faolain, beginning in 1980.

Nell McCafferty died from complications of a stroke at a nursing home in Fahan, Inishowen, County Donegal, on 21 August 2024.