In the February 1974 general election she was opposed by other Nationalist candidates and lost her seat. She married Michael McAliskey, by whom she had become pregnant in 1971, on Apher pregnancy out of wedlock had lost her some support. After being re-elected in the 1970 general election Devlin declared that she would sit in Parliament as an Independent Socialist.ĭevlin punched Reginald Maudling, the Home Secretary in the Conservative government, when he made a statement to Parliament on Bloody Sunday supporting the army line that it had fired only in self-defence. Her radical left-wing politics, coupled with her anti-clericalism, ended in conviction of incitement to riot in December 1969 and she served a short jail term. Breaking with tradition she made her highly-praised maiden speech within an hour of taking her seat. She is the youngest woman ever to be elected to the British parliament. When the MP for Mid-Ulster died, she fought the by-election on the " Unity" ticket and was elected to Parliament at the age of 21. She opposed James Chichester-Clark in the Northern Ireland general election of 1969. She served as a British member of Parliament from 1969 to 1974, and is a critic of the Good Friday Agreement.ĭevlin was studying Psychology at Queen's University Belfast in 1968 when she took a prominent role in a student-led civil rights political party called People's Democracy. Josephine Bernadette Devlin McAliskey (born April 23, 1947), also known as Bernadette Devlin and Bernadette McAliskey, is a Northern Ireland republican politician.
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