My mother, Eileen Carragher, who has died aged 91, was an inspirational teacher, a founder member of the Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP) in Northern Ireland, and a mother of eight, including triplets.
She was born in Belfast and attended St Dominic's girls' school in the Falls Road and then Queen's University, graduating in 1941 with a degree in Irish and mathematics. In 1945 she married Tom Carragher, a shipyard electrician and trade unionist, who served as an Irish Labour councillor on the Belfast corporation. In the mid-1950s he was laid off, as many Catholics were at the time. It is a tribute to both Tom and Eileen that, despite this, they brought their children up to look at the person, not the creed, and to respect all.
Tom, a self-taught horologist, then ran a jewellery shop. Financial pressures and her own ambition brought Eileen into the workplace as a teacher, first at St Louise's secondary school and then back to St Dominic's, where she taught for the rest of her career. She is fondly remembered by generations of women to whom she explained the mysteries of compound fractions and quadratic equations. But she also brought to her teaching the skills of a mother. She understood adolescent girls and also knew how tough it could be for parents struggling to make ends meet.
Her own family were far from immune as the Troubles took hold. She and Tom were founder members of the SDLP, seeing in it politics that chimed with their own beliefs in constitutional nationalism and social justice. But like many, they were tested. Tom's shop was burnt out in the summer of 1970. Their home was attacked, their son was threatened and had to leave Belfast, friends and neighbours were killed. The staff at St Dominic's strove to make the school a place of peace and refuge for pupils and Eileen, who became its vice-principal in 1976, was at the forefront of these efforts.
Tom died suddenly in 1977. Eileen threw herself into her work for the SDLP and for PACE – Protestant and Catholic Encounter. She is survived by her children, Rosaleen, Brenda, Breigeen, Owen, Patrick, Kathleen, Fionnuala and me, 14 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.