Lynda Walker

Lynda Walker is a life-long feminist activist who was instrumental to the campaigns for civil rights, and women’s rights, and is an active Trade Unionist in Northern Ireland. Hailing originally from Sheffield, Lynda Walker made Belfast her home in 1969, and has dedicated her life to elevating women and campaigning for positive change, particularly for women in working class communities. She was a significant activist in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and a founder member of the Northern Ireland Women’s Rights Movement. In 1971 she led a demonstration against Margaret Thatcher’s school milk cuts, and in 1979 co-founded the Downtown Women’s Centre, the first of its kind in Northern Ireland. Lynda Walker was a founder member of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition in 1996, which sought to represent women’s voices in politics and played a fundamental role in establishing the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. She joined the Communist Party of Ireland, where she was National Chairperson from 2006-2017, and was involved in the formation of Reclaim the Agenda in 2010, a coalition of feminist, LGBTQ+ and community groups working towards equality. Lynda Walker was highly influential in developing educational opportunities for women. She was a Commissioner for the Equal Opportunities Commission, in which she advocated for training and education for women; was a founding member of the Training for Women Network; and directed the Women’s Studies course at the Belfast Metropolitan College, where she taught until 2008. Lynda Walker continues to elevate women in society. Alongside Dr Margaret Ward and Dr Myrtle Hill, Lynda produced the NLHF project A Century of Women.

Lynda Walker’s contribution to women’s liberation appears throughout many archives at the Linen Hall Library. She features in collections relating to the Northern Ireland Women’s Rights Movement, Women’s News periodicals, Women’s ephemera, International Women’s Day ephemera, Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, Marie Mulholland’s archive, Prof Pauline Murphy’s archive, and among the Linen Hall Library’s political posters. Lynda Walker’s extensive personal archive is currently being digitised and will soon be added to the extraORDINARYwomen website.