Nell McCafferty ‘changed Ireland for the better and came from the Bogside to do that’

Derry Journal

Transcript

00:00But by the end of the Germans, they actually changed the word.

00:04Many of them died.

00:06Many of them, like what you think,

00:08are heirs to the shepherd.

00:10These are the contrary.

00:13By then, it's not a German community.

00:15But now they've changed the word.

00:18And it hasn't been for now.

00:19APPLAUSE

00:27And in the course of that,

00:29we've seen in France,

00:31as many women, I say, alive.

00:33LAUGHTER

00:37Because they had never seen or heard of it.

00:40It hasn't been a fight.

00:42In the last hundred years,

00:45for women's rights,

00:47for women's rights to pay,

00:49for women's rights to have a job,

00:51if we think about how these personalities have been

00:54over the last hundred years,

00:56who has made the biggest contribution?

00:59Now we're talking about it.

01:01Now we're talking about it.

01:03Change that word.

01:04Change that word for the better.

01:06It's a gift from the bottom side to do that.

01:09APPLAUSE

01:17Somebody once described her,

01:19an Irish markswoman,

01:21described her as the first lady of Paris.

01:25And I said, OK, that guy's a bit lucky.

01:29LAUGHTER

01:32But she...

01:34When they took her back,

01:37it was a cool lady.

01:38It's not the sort I heard at all.

01:40Having a car, you know,

01:42you can colour a car now.

01:44And the day they took her here,

01:46she never must have been in this.

01:48Had never been in it.

01:50A bad day for her.

01:52I remember when I was taking this.

01:54You know, she was driving as we were all supposed to be here.

01:56So lucky to come from that particular patch of land.

01:59She was always on the side of the dungeon.

02:03And she was always on the side of the outlaws.

02:06That's where she was most comfortable.

02:08With the outlaws.

02:09Nobody can leave the man.

02:12Look down at the centre.

02:13Not unfortunately,

02:14not because of the personal commitment to Mel

02:16or anybody else.

02:18We can see empowerment is a different and better

02:21explanation for the fact that Mel

02:23can't keep those tickets.

02:25APPLAUSE

02:28Because it does, at last,

02:30get the recognition she deserves.

02:32And sure, it's not a new view of empowerment,

02:34that we leave our good heroes and heroines,

02:37but after we have died,

02:39we go and stand up and say

02:41what has been in our hearts the whole time.

02:44On the evening of Sunday,

02:47they bid me to be Sunday.

02:50When we were all supposed to be here,

02:52Mel went away and wrote an article

02:54about not being Sunday.

02:56They never questioned it.

02:58They called it Smoke and Fear for Boston Street.

03:01And do you know, this article,

03:03in a little publication,

03:05which doesn't exist anymore,

03:08a few of us were involved in producing it,

03:10but we'll leave it for a week from now,

03:12unless we get just ordinary people

03:14from around the area.

03:16Her article was entitled,

03:18in a settling,

03:20There Will Be Another Day.

03:22She began,

03:23Bloody Sunday

03:25was a fine day

03:27and a foul day.

03:29It was a fine day to walk down South Bay,

03:32singing our songs,

03:34carrying our banners.

03:36Thousands of us,

03:38singing.

03:39To pick up thousands more of our comrades,

03:41singing, at the flag we were.

03:44And then to swell through the bog state

03:47where it all began 40 years ago.

03:50Do you remember?

03:52We asked them to ban the corporation,

03:55but they said no,

03:56and then they did it.

03:58We demanded fair distribution of housing,

04:00but they said no,

04:02and then they did it.

04:04We demanded a home secondary resettlement,

04:07but they said no,

04:09and then they did it.

04:11We told the police to leave the bog state,

04:13but they said no,

04:15rubbing all the way back to the barricades.

04:18And when sounds of any kind

04:20hit the wooden street,

04:22paying the price of a dog,

04:24we thought it more that we could bear it,

04:26if we did.

04:28Death was a stranger to our family.

04:32Death is no stranger to us now.

04:35A bloody price to pay,

04:38and no easier to bear.

04:40No one who has died

04:42is a stranger to us.

04:46What impossible things did we ask ourselves

04:49to be a foreign democracy

04:51in the society around us.

04:54The least of our people,

04:57and the best.

04:59Thirteen men were murdered last week.

05:02Let it be said of them that great,

05:04that the days of retreat

05:06are nothing of ease.

05:08Let it not be said of us

05:11that we die in vain.

05:13Stay free,

05:15coalition sisters,

05:16there will be another day.

05:18Absolutely,

05:19there will be another day,

05:21but there will never be another

05:23American America.

06:01I will never leave you,

06:04I will never leave you,

06:07I will never leave you,

06:10I will never leave you,

06:13I will never leave you,

06:16I will never leave you,

06:19I will never leave you,

06:22I will never leave you,

06:25I will never leave you,

06:28I will never leave you,

06:31I will never leave you,

06:34I will never leave you,

06:37I will never leave you,

06:40I will never leave you,

06:43I will never leave you.

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