Padraigin
Drinan — background information
Death threat solicitor walks
down Rosemary's solitary path
By Anne Cadwallader
Ireland
on Sunday, October 8, 2000
Her name is top of a death
list on a hate-filled loyalist website. Her Belfast home is newly-fortified
with bullet-proof windows. In 1973, she appeared on behalf of the families
of the Bloody Sunday dead at the now discredited Widgery Tribunal. She was
once Gerry Fitt's right-hand woman. She was a close friend of Dominic McGlinchey.
As long ago as 1969, her collarbone
was fractured when an infuriated Paisley follower hit her with his blackthorn
stick. Yet it is as solicitor for the Garvaghy Road residents coalition
that Padraigin Drinan has finally become known to a wider public. Barely
5 ft
in her stockinged feet, gentle-faced and softly-spoken, Drinan hardly
looks like a front-line warrior in the battle for human rights in the North.
She also appears a most unlikely target for loyalist paramilitaries. But
she
is both a fighter and a potential victim. After much campaigning, both
in Ireland and in the USA, the RUC was finally forced to add her name to
the
list of those on their "key persons protection scheme."
The workmen moved into her
house and in went the grenade-proof doors and closed-circuit television.
The threat to her life has hardly eased with her recent action in co-ordinating
six ground-breaking cases at the European Court of Human Rights against
the British government for allegedly failing to protect its citizens from
racial
harassment. The act implementing the Good Friday agreement failed to
enshrine the "right to live free from sectarian harassment" into law. London says
this part of the agreement is merely "aspirational."
Drinan says it's discrimination.
People are, worryingly, beginning to draw parallels between Drinan and the
murdered solicitor, Rosemary Nelson, while hoping, of course, that she doesn't
suffer the same fate as the latter (who was assassinated by loyalists in
a March 1998 car bombing). At a superficial level, there are wide differences
between the two women. Nelson was always immaculately dressed. Her office
was neat as a new pin. On Drinan's list of priorities, a well-turned heel
does not appear high. Her office and home stand little chance of featuring
in a glossy magazine. But at a deeper level, there are profound similarities.
Drinan is, as Nelson was, an incurable workaholic with a boundless commitment
for using the law to vindicate individual rights. Because of their belief
that racism and sectarianism are two sides of the same coin, a burning anger
at injustice and an enduring belief in non-violence to achieve change, both
women's work will live on in the public's memory. The two even knew each
other. They were both involved in acting as legal advisors to residents groups
(Drinan for the Lower Ormeau, Nelson for the Garvaghy Road. Since Nelson's
murder, Drinan works for both). Like Nelson, Drinan also specialises in defending
women's and traveller's rights, along with cases of alleged racial discrimination.
"We would chat and swap stories
on the phone all the time and meet about once a month, over the last two
years of her life, to compare notes. It was great to be with someone who
was interested in the same areas of law as I am and I still miss her greatly," says
Drinan. Drinan was born in west Belfast 53 years ago. Her mother ran
a bar where the Divis tower now stands, at the town-centre end of the
Falls
Road.
Her father, born in Cork, taught Irish at St. Malachy's college.
"Father spoke no English at
home, mother spoke no Irish. It was a bit difficult," she laughs. Her primary
school's catchment area included Ballymurphy so, despite her middle-class
background, Drinan learned at an early age about poverty. While at St. Dominic's,
she became involved in the Republican Labour party and worked voluntarily
for Gerry Fitt at Stormont. After St. Dominic's, she did "A" levels at
Belfast tech and law at Queens. There she joined People's democracy and
became embroiled
in the civil rights movement. Her collarbone was broken at Burntollet,
when DUP members, ably assisted by B Specials, attacked marchers on their
way
to Derry.
"I can still remember the
face of the man who hit me. I thought if I stood my ground and didn't
run away, he wouldn't hit me. I was wrong, he just lifted his walking
stick high
above his head, and brought it down on me. It still aches a bit.
"It was an exciting time to
be young. I got hit regularly but you didn't feel pain because you were so
hyped up at what was happening around you." When other friends became involved
in the resurgent IRA, Drinan did not enlist. Why? "I genuinely believed in
civil rights and that if you had right on your side, you would win in the
end." On her first day out of college, she applied to work with Christopher
Napier, a practising solicitor she met at a civil rights demonstration.
"For the first year I did
nothing but work on internment cases to get people freed. That set
the tone for my life's work which has always been rights-based. I was a
witness
for
the Irish government in its case to the European Court of Human Rights
over the ill-treatment of detainees.
"I also represented the families
of the Bloody Sunday victims at the Widgery tribunal in Coleraine.
With hindsight, of course, you could say we should never have taken part
in it
but, at the
time, people really wanted the story to come out in public.
"We worked 20 hours a day,
every day, for six weeks straight. It was dreadful when he brought
in his verdict, but we had almost expected it from what he was saying during
the
course of the tribunal.
"I then took a case for the
Equal Opportunities Commission against a Belfast bar that refused to serve
women. We won that case. I also acted for Noreen Winchester, a woman convicted
of murdering her abusive father. We overturned the conviction and from that
sprang Belfast Women's Aid and the Rape Crisis Centre." Her friendship
with Dominic McGlinchey grew after she represented him in an appeal against
a
murder conviction.
"He was a terrific person,
the media portrait just isn't him. He was persuasive, single-minded, intelligent." Drinan
is still close to Declan and Dominic, the two orphaned sons of Dominic
and Mary McGlinchey. She never married and, being childless, the two
McGlinchey boys are close to her heart. She also had a long-standing
relationship
with
a man, dating back to her student days but, two years ago, they parted
because of a political disagreement. She doesn't cook, loves Irish music,
rarely
goes to the movies, reads voraciously when she gets the chance, and has
recently discovered the internet, with which she is fascinated. Now at
the peak of
her professional career, with her enthusiasm for the law and its potential
to increase the sum of justice and human happiness undimmed, Padraigin
Drinan is likely to remain in the difficult and dangerous position of
legal vanguard
in the North.
Northern parades commission
selection questioned
(by Anne Cadwallader, Ireland
on Sunday)
The British government has
finally admitted that contentious Orange parades are a sectarian issue.
A sworn statement, prepared for a court hearing this week by the
Office, includes the words "marching is a sectarian issue."
Previously, the NIO had insisted
that marching was a "cultural" issue, or one of identify, denying any suggestion
that Orange, Black or Apprentice Boys marches have any sectarian undertones.
The NIO will be accused of gender as well as political discrimination on
Tuesday when the make-up of the new Parades Commission is subjected to a
judicial review in Belfast High Court. Of the Commission's seven members,
none is a woman and only one could be categorised as "nationalist."
Another is Catholic but the
only political party he has been a member of is the Alliance Party. In
a replying affidavit sent to a lawyer acting for the Garvaghy Road Residents
Coalition (GRRC), a statement on behalf of the British government says
there
was no "suitable female candidate of whose existence we were aware of whose
established merit for the post was known to us." It goes on to say "A female
candidate who did not meet the merit threshold could not be appointed as
this would be unlawful", but this is being challenged by a member of
the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition (GRRC).
The lawyer, Padraigin Drinan,
says she can think of at least ten women, immediately, who might
have made excellent members of the Parades Commission and wonders why the
NIO
did not
approach them. Although all political parties should have received
an invitation to nominate members, neither the SDLP nor Sinn Féin
said they received a copy, despite searches through their offices to find
any
record. The Women's Coalition did receive an invitation, but replied
saying they could not nominate as the Commission's new terms of reference
had not
been
decided and without an idea of the job commissioners were expected
to do, it was unreasonable to expect nominations.
It's understood that when
nominations closed, the NIO decided to "trawl" or "headhunt" for applicants,
but even then were unable to find any women deemed suitable for membership
of the Commission, either Protestant or Catholic. The judicial review
is being taken by Evelyn White, a grandmother who lives in the Garvaghy
Road
area, and alleges that the make-up of the Commission fails to live up
to its statutory obligation to be representative of the community as
a whole.
An affidavit has been lodged
by Monica McWilliams of the Women's Coalition supporting
White's case for reasons of gender discrimination. The Human Rights Commission
is also supporting her case.
A responding affidavit lodged
by an NIO representative states that the marching issue is a "sectarian" one
and is not gender-related. Drinan claims the rules on selecting people
for public office have been breached.
"These rules, the so-called
'Nolan Principles', should govern precisely how advertisements, short-lists,
interviewing and appointments are carried out onto public bodies", she said. "They
have been totally ignored by the Office in their headhunting
of people they deem suitable."
In its affidavit, the NIO
says the absence of female members on the Commission is "regrettable" but
that the Secretary of State compiled with the law "bearing in mind that
marching is a sectarian and not a gender issue."
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