Sarah Doherty: The campaigner who gave shirt factory women a voice

Deans said she first became aware of her great-aunts’ work and legacy when a relative had pulled together some family history and from doing some research of her own.

She remembers too, her father speaking of her great aunt.

“I remember my father Tom mentioning her as he was also involved in building trade unionism, but not much else. So I was very pleased to discover how active she had been, and how she worked hard to get better conditions and pay for the factory girls especially,” she said.

Deans added: “That attitude has come down through the years and the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of her brothers and sisters still figure prominently in the political and community life of Derry to the present day.”

Doherty’s family, she said, are “very proud” that Doherty’s legacy is now being recognised and honoured.

Chris Spurr of the Ulster History Circle said Doherty was “was a trade unionist who campaigned for women’s rights, but first and foremost she was a Derry shirt factory girl, one of the thousands whose working lives remain forever stitched through the fabric of the city”.

Doherty, who never married, died in 1947. She is buried in Derry’s City Cemetery.