Peacekeeper crossed the divide
FEW women in Northern Ireland worked harder for lasting peace than May Blood, an activist in Belfast who devoted much of her life to helping those in Protestant and Catholic communities.
Although a Protestant herself she witnessed the vile savagery of hate when paramilitaries burned down her home just because her father had defended a Roman Catholic neighbour.
For nearly four decades as a trade union official at a Belfast linen mill she fought for better conditions for all workers.
Incensed by the violence around her, she jointly formed the Women’s Coalition to give women on both sides of the sectarian divide a voice to push for peace.
Just before the millennium, Labour’s then Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam made her a baroness, giving her a life peerage in the House of Lords.
With an elevated position she battled hard for integrated schools as, like most sensible people, she knew getting children to mix would lead to a better society.
May Blood was born in the Shankill district of Belfast and lived in Magnetic Street at a time when both religious communities mixed well.
She was raised by her mother, a cook in a factory, for the first six years of her life while her father was away in the army.
At the age of 14 she joined the Blackstaff linen mill and enjoyed the tight-knit community of female workers.
When the mill closed in 1989, Blood became a full-time community worker in and around the city’s Shankill Road.
For 19 years she attended the House of Lords three days a week while also raising £15million to help improve integrated education in Northern Ireland.
Blood retired from the Lords in September 2018. She died from brain cancer.