Betty Sinclair

For the New Zealand cricketer, see Betty Sinclair (cricketer).

Elizabeth "Betty" Sinclair (1910–1981) was a Northern Irish communist activist.

Born to a Church of Ireland family in the Ardoyne area of Belfast, Sinclair became a millworker alongside her mother after leaving school at the age of fifteen. She joined the Revolutionary Workers' Group (RWG) in 1932.[1] In 1933, she was involved in the Outdoor Relief Strike. She then attended the International Lenin School in Moscow until 1935.[2]

The RWG established the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) in 1933, and Sinclair became a leading member. In 1940 she was arrested after the CPI paper Unity published an article allegedly sympathetic to the IRA, and she was sentenced to two months' imprisonment in 1941. The same year she became a full-time party worker in Belfast. In the 1945 election for the Northern Ireland Parliament she stood as a CPI candidate and received 4,000 votes.[2][3]

When the all-Ireland CPI dissolved in 1941, Sinclair remained an active member of the Communist Party of Northern Ireland (CPNI) and served as its Secretary from 1942-45.[1] She stood for the group in Belfast Cromac at the Northern Ireland general election, 1945, taking almost one third of the votes.[2] In 1947, Sinclair was appointed full-time secretary of the Belfast and District Trades Union Council.

Sinclair was the Trades Council's representative at the talks which founded the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in 1967, and she served as NICRA chairperson until 1969, when she resigned, claiming it had become dominated by ultra leftists and was worsening sectarian divisions. She stepped down from her trades council post in 1975, and moved to Prague to work for the World Marxist Review, before returning to Belfast.[2] She died in a fire in her flat in East Belfast in 1981.

References

  1. 1 2 Michael Farrell, Northern Ireland: The Orange State, Pluto Press (2nd edition, June 1980); ISBN 0861043006/ISBN 978-0861043002.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Betty Sinclair profile, communistpartyofireland.ie; accessed 25 February 2015.
  3. ↑ ""The Communist Party of Ireland: A Critical History", workersrepublic.org; accessed 25 February 2015.
Political offices
Preceded by
Robert Morrow		 Secretary of the Belfast Trades Council
1947–1975 		Succeeded by
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