Inez McCormack

Inez McCormack (née Murphy; 28 September 1943 – 21 January 2013) was a Northern Irish trade union leader and human rights activist. She was the first female president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (1999 to 2001), representing the UNISON union. She also successfully campaigned for the inclusion of strong equality and human rights provisions in the Good Friday Agreement, and was a signatory to the MacBride Principles for fair employment.

McCormack founded Participation and the Practice of Rights, a human rights organisation supporting disadvantaged groups based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which she continued to advise until her death. Throughout her career, she crossed sectarian lines and national boundaries to fight for those who have faced, in her words, "the humiliation of exclusion," particularly women.

McCormack was named by the American publication Newsweek in 2011 as one of "150 women who shake the world", and her life and work have been portrayed by Meryl Streep in the documentary play SEVEN.

Early years

Born Inez Murphy into an Ulster Protestant family in Cultra, County Down, she attended Glenlola Collegiate School until taking up a position as a junior clerk in the Northern Ireland Civil Service at the age of 17, studying at night for her A-levels. Of her sheltered unionist background, McCormack recalled: "I was a puzzled young Prod – until I was 17 I hadn't knowingly met a Catholic. I was a young Protestant girl who didn't understand that there were grave issues of inequality, injustice and division in our society".

McCormack attended Magee College in Derry between 1964 and 1966 Her parents opposed her marriage to Vincent: "Mixed marriages weren't exactly popular or acceptable and there was a lot of reaction," she recalled. "Over the years they came round, more or less, but they were never comfortable with it." Her efforts were markedly successful, increasing union membership from 800 to 15000 by the time UNISON was formed in 1993. In the 1980s, McCormack was a signatory of the McBride Principles, a set of international ethical investment. She continues to work for ethical globalization to ensure that no one is left behind. McCormack was also appointed in 2010 by the Irish government as the independent chair of a consultative process to develop an Irish National Action Plan to meet government obligations under the UN Resolution on Women, Peace and Security. She received a posthumous LLD honorary doctorate from University of Ulster in 2013.

McCormack was a well-known writer and broadcaster, and her work has been featured in a number of television programmes and documentaries. Numerous op-eds and articles by McCormack on the theme of underpinning building peace and prosperity by inclusive socio-economic strategies have been published in recent years, and some of her work was included in the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (2002).

Recognition

McCormack's career was featured in the 2010 American documentary play Seven. The play, developed by Vital Voices, spotlights seven women from across the world that have overcame obstacles to bring major changes in their home countries. Meryl Streep portrayed McCormack.

In 2011, Newsweek named McCormack as one of its "150 women who shake the world," the only Northern Irish woman to be named as such.

Among those who have paid tribute to her were the Irish president Michael D Higgins, the former president, Mary Robinson, and Hillary Clinton. Clinton said: "She travelled the world encouraging young women to be agents of change in their communities and countries. We have come so far in part because of her insistence on a seat at the table for women and others who have been marginalised." Shortly before her death, when asked why she did the work that she did, McCormack replied that: "...at the heart of everything, I desire to see the glint in a woman’s eye who thought she was nobody, when she realised she was somebody."