Opinion

Allison Morris: Documentary left me seeing the Women's Coalition in a new light

Monica McWilliams was jeered by male MLas as she spoke in the assembly
Monica McWilliams was jeered by male MLas as she spoke in the assembly Monica McWilliams was jeered by male MLas as she spoke in the assembly

Of its time and served a purpose, was how the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition was summed up in the BBC documentary Peacemakers: Wave Goodbye to Dinosaurs, a look at the group of campaigning women who formed a political party and found themselves in the middle of historic peace talks.

The 1996 election to form the Northern Ireland Forum was in itself a strange reality, coming as it did after so much pain and conflict.

The all female party formed just six weeks prior to the election and led by two women, Monica McWilliams and Pearl Sagar, caused quite the controversy at the time, given the macho nature of Northern Ireland's political landscape.

It was a strange hotchpotch of women from very different walks of life and who ultimately had very different political views.

I was in my mid-20s with three small children when the Women's Coalition was formed.

At the time I would never have dreamed of joining or even voting for them, they seemed a middle class construct, a world away from my reality.

I've spent my life surrounded by strong female role models, women from the west Belfast of my youth juggled work, family and ultimately survival at all times with a piercing sense of self deprecating humour.

I wasn't searching for strong feminist women to look up to, I already had that in my formidable mother.

But what film-maker Eimhear O'Neill's magnificently produced documentary did do was make me view the campaigning party in a totally different light.

While the main spokesperson, and the one most people associate with the party, was university lecturer Monica McWilliams, her counterpart social worker Pearl Sagar was anything but the posh, beautifully coiffured, power suit wearing NIWC that I remember.

As working class as they come she was elected as co leader to represent the Protestant half of the cross-community party, and despite us being from different traditions, she reminded me of the tough talking, no nonsense women of my youth.

The party was made up of extremes, and there were unlikely bedfellows, but all were fiercely and rightly proud of what they achieved in such a short time.

Ultimately the cross section of women who made the coalition work at that specific time was what made it untenable in the long term.

Their aim was to get women at the talks table and they achieved that.

However, the difference politically in the kind of Northern Ireland those women envisaged long term was always going to be difficult to juggle long term.

What did strike me was how much of a lasting influence they have had on politics in Northern Ireland, long after the party ceased to exist.

We know that people like McWilliams, Jane Morrice, Avila Kilmurray and Baroness May Blood all before and afterwards played key roles in civic society and peace building, but the NIWC long term legacy was making women in politics serious players and not just token candidates.

The Northern Ireland of those key negotiation years was a volatile and violent place.

The women talked of carrying messages between players and trying to stay on good terms with all the main parties, despite not always being received with the same grace.

They did what women do in conflict situations the world over, be it Belfast or Baghdad, they brought compassion and practicality to the proceedings.

The documentary showed the DUP as a cold house for women at the time, Peter Robinson saying good Ulster women should be happy to work in a 'supporting' role to their men.

Nigel Dodds is seen shouting across the chamber at Monica McWilliams to sit down and stop wasting time.

The men often jeered and mooed at the women when they took to their feet to speak.

And yet the DUP is now led by a woman in the formidable Arlene Foster, and the men now act in a supporting role to her.

Sinn Féin also now led in the north by a woman as is the Alliance, with the SDLP's most vocal and impressive members also women.

No longer the novelty, the joke candidates, the tea makers, women play a key role in making political decisions, just as they'd played a key role in community development for years, and they have the NI Women's Coalition to thank, at least in part, for that.