McIvor, Berna

by Patrick Maume

McIvor, Berna (1932–2010), political and community activist, was born Bernadette Spellman on 9 February 1932 in Coalisland, Co. Tyrone. She trained as a teacher at St Mary's College, Belfast, and taught in the Long Tower primary school (in the Bogside area of Derry city) and later in Faughanvale, Co. Londonderry, where she organised a local credit union. After marrying businessman Ivor McIvor (d. 2006), she moved to Derry, where she raised their five children (three sons and two daughters) and became active in local community groups. Her participation in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association of the late 1960s and early 1970s led to her lifelong involvement with the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). Although she served as party treasurer and a party trustee, her principal political contribution was at local level, where she served as agent in numerous local, Stormont and Westminster elections.

In particular, she was close to the long-serving party leader John Hume (b. 1937), whose background in teaching and the credit union resembled hers. McIvor, recalled by Hume's wife Pat as 'a woman of exceptional erudition, warmth and above all humour' (Farren and Haughey, 212), was the key figure in a network of local activists who played a vital role in the emergence of Derry city as an SDLP stronghold, retained well after the party had taken second place to Sinn Féin in most other areas. Such a position involved serious risks during the Northern Ireland troubles: on her death, Hume recalled her as 'a tower of strength through many dark and difficult times' (Derry Journal, 3 December 2010). Her stature was shown by the fact that she was one of Hume's official guests when he went to Oslo to receive the 1998 Nobel peace prize.

McIvor formally nominated Mark Durkan as successor to Hume in the 2005 Westminster election and Pól Callaghan as successor to Durkan as MLA for Foyle in 2010. In a 1996 interview she criticised women who complained about the lack of female influence in politics while refusing to join political parties: 'too many middle-class women stay out of politics and play bridge or golf instead' (quoted in Belfast Telegraph, 2 December 2010).

In addition to her political activities, McIvor served on the boards of Belfast Telegraph Ltd and of Independent News and Media (Northern Ireland), and of several local bodies, including the Derry verbal and visual arts centres, the Western Education and Library Board (becoming vice-chairwoman), the Foyle Health and Social Services Trust, the Western Area Adoption Board, the Probation Board for Northern Ireland, and a number of local schools. In 1998–9 she was a founding member of the Parades Commission set up to regulate political parades in Northern Ireland (against strong unionist opposition). McIvor had a strong sense of Derry identity. Although she generally avoided publicity and was not widely known outside Derry, SDLP colleagues recalled her as 'a backbone of the party', determined and outspoken, with 'a huge appetite for issues and ideas' (Belfast Telegraph, 2 December 2010).

Berna McIvor died of cancer in the Foyle Hospice, Derry city, on 30 November 2010. On 6 November she had attended the annual SDLP conference, and two weeks earlier had seen Hume receive an 'Ireland's Greatest' award after he was voted the greatest person ever in Irish history by RTÉ viewers. McIvor can be seen as a representative figure of the new and less provincial catholic professional class which helped to make official discrimination unsustainable and provided the organisational core of northern constitutional nationalism in the later twentieth century.