May Blood, Baroness Blood

May Blood, Baroness Blood of Blackwatertown, MBE (born 26 May 1938) is a Labour member of the British House of Lords.

Blood was born and raised in Belfast and worked in a linen mill from 1952-90 where she soon became an active member of the trade union and a shop steward. She was involved in creating the women's committee in the Trade Union and promoting equality for women at work. Later she worked as a manager of Cairn Martin Wood Products from 1991-94.

Since 1994, she has been an Information Officer of the Greater Shankill Partnership and is a founding member of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition. In 1998, she was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Ulster and was awarded a life peerage as Baroness Blood, of Blackwatertown in the County of Armagh in 1999. She was the first woman in Northern Ireland to be given a life peerage.[1]

She received an honorary D.Univ from the Queen's University of Belfast in 2000, and again from the Open University the following year. In 2007, she published her autobiography, Watch my Lips, I'm Speaking.[2]

References

  1. ↑ "Celebrated citizen: Baroness May Blood MBE", City Matters, September–October 2009. Belfast City Council.
  2. ↑ Watch my Lips, I'm Speaking, Gill & Macmillan Ltd (September 2007); ISBN 0-7171-4252-3

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