Sheelagh Mary Murnaghan, (26 May 1924 – 14 September 1993) was an

Ulster Liberal Party The Ulster Liberal Party was a liberal and non-sectarian political party in Northern Ireland linked to the British Liberal Party. The party was officially neutral on the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. Members expressed different vi ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) in the

House of Commons of Northern Ireland The House of Commons of Northern Ireland was the lower house of the Parliament of Northern Ireland created under the ''Government of Ireland Act 1920''. The upper house in the bicameral parliament was called the Senate. It was abolished wit ...

at Stormont.

Early life

Sheelagh Mary Murnaghan was born on 24 May 1924 to Josephine Mary Morrogh and Vincent Hugh Murnaghan. She was the eldest of their six children. Her grandfather,

George Murnaghan George Murnaghan (4 July 1847 – 13 January 1929) was an Irish Nationalist Member of Parliament in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. He represented the Mid Tyrone constituency from the 1895 United Kingdom general election, until the Januar ...

was a well-known nationalist politician in Ireland. She was educated at Loreto Grammar School in Omagh,

Loreto Abbey Rathfarnham () is a Southside suburb of Dublin, Ireland. It is south of Terenure, east of Templeogue, and is in the postal districts of Dublin 14 and 16. It is within the administrative areas of both Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council ...

in Rathfarnham and studied law in

Queen's University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

, graduating in 1947. While studying in Queen's University, Murnaghan also captained the hockey team from 1955 to 1956 and was the first female president of the Literary and Scientific Debating Society; also known as The Literific.

Political career

After graduating from college, Murnaghan became " neof only nine women ever elected to the fifty-two-seat Stormont House of Commons during its fifty-year existence". She became a member of the Ulster Liberal Association in 1959 and finished her political career in November 1968 when the seat for Queen's University Belfast was abolished. "Sheelagh was seen as a slightly eccentric figure", according to Ruth Illingworth, during her time as a politician. While an MP, Murnaghan campaigned to abolish the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

and for a bill of

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

. When her seat was abolished, she failed to win North Down at the

1969 Northern Ireland general election The 1969 Northern Ireland general election was held on Monday 24 February 1969. It was the last election to the Parliament of Northern Ireland before its abolition by the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. Unlike previous elections that p ...

, and was also unsuccessful in Belfast South at the

1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election Events January * January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. P ...

. During the 1970s, she sat on various

quango A quango or QUANGO (less often QuANGO or QANGO) is an organisation to which a government has devolved power, but which is still partly controlled and/or financed by government bodies. The term was originally a shortening of "quasi-NGO", where NG ...

s, including the Industrial Relations Tribunal and the Equal Opportunities Commission. She continued to practice at the Bar, specialising in harassment cases. She died in 1993, aged 69, from undisclosed causes.

References

External links

Biographies of Members of the Northern Ireland House of Commons
https://liberalhistory.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/71_Rynder_Sheelagh_Murnaghan.pdf {{DEFAULTSORT:Murnaghan, Sheelagh 1924 births 1993 deaths Alumni of Queen's University Belfast Women members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland Members of the Bar of Northern Ireland Members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland 1958–1962 Members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland 1962–1965 Members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland 1965–1969 Barristers from Northern Ireland Officers of the Order of the British Empire Politicians from Belfast Politicians from Dublin (city) People from Omagh Place of death missing Ulster Liberal Party members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland Women lawyers from Northern Ireland 20th-century lawyers from Northern Ireland Female field hockey players from Northern Ireland Irish female field hockey players British female field hockey players Members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland for Queen's University of Belfast Ireland international women's field hockey players Liberal Party (UK) parliamentary candidates 20th-century British women lawyers Lawyers from County Dublin Field hockey players from County Dublin People educated at Loreto Grammar School, Omagh