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Bernadette Devlin Gives her Maiden Speech in British Parliament on April 22, 1969, Decries British Oppression in Northern Ireland




Bernadette Devlin of Cookstown, Country Tyrone, was elected as the Mid Ulster MP to Westminster Parliament in 1969, and gave her maiden speech there on April 22, 1969. She was 21 years old. 

Her opening words set the tone of the speech and also of her political career:

"I understand that in making my maiden speech on the day of my arrival in Parliament and in making it on a controversial issue I flaunt the unwritten traditions of the House, but I think that the situation of my people merits the flaunting of such traditions," she said.  Read her entire speech here.

Devlin criticized the political corruption and hypocrisy of the political establishment in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.  She criticized "the society of landlords who, by ancient charter of Charles II, still hold the rights of the ordinary people of Northern Ireland over such things as fishing and as paying the most ridiculous and exorbitant rents, although families have lived for generations on their land....The policy of segregated housing is to be clearly seen in the smallest villages of Ulster."

She closed her remarks with a challenge to the British Parliament: "The question before this House, in view of the apathy, neglect and lack of understanding which this House has shown to these people in Ulster which it claims to represent, is how in the shortest space it can make up for 50 years of neglect, apathy and lack of understanding," she said.

RTC journalist John Bowman later described Devlin as “the most extraordinary politician of the year.”

In her biography on the Ulster Museum website, Devlin describes herself as "a campaigner for social justice and human rights all of my adult life."  Upon retirement she promised to "continue my activities as an 'elder of the rebel alliance.'"

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