McAliskey, Bernadette Josephine (1947– )

Northern Irish political activist, prominent in the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s. In 1969, at the age of 21, she was elected to the Westminster Parliament as an MP for the Mid-Ulster constituency. In December 1969 she was arrested while leading Catholic rioters in the Bogside, Londonderry, and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for incitement to riot. She was re-elected as MP in 1970 but lost her seat at the 1974 general election. In 1981, along with her husband, Michael McAliskey, she survived an assassination attempt by Protestant loyalists after actively supporting IRA hunger strikers. She has opposed the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and Sinn Féin's entry into government in Northern Ireland.

McAliskey was born into a poor Catholic nationalist family in County Tyrone. While studying psychology at Queen's University, Belfast, she won the Mid-Ulster by-election as an Independent Unity candidate, becoming the youngest MP at Westminster since William Pitt. She stood on the slogan ‘I will take my seat and fight for your rights’, rejecting the traditional republican tactic of abstentionism.