Betty Sinclair

Betty Sinclair (1910 - 1981) was an Irish communist activist.

Born to a Protestant family in the Ardoyne area of Belfast, Sinclair became a mill worker and joined the Revolutionary Workers’ Group (RWG) in 1932.Michael Farrell, "Northern Ireland: The Orange State"] In 1933, she was involved in the Outdoor Relief Strike. She then attended the Lenin School in Moscow until 1935." [http://www.communistpartyofireland.ie/s-sinclair.html Betty Sinclair] ", Communist Party of Ireland]

The RWG established the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) in 1933, and Sinclair became a leading member. She was jailed for sedition in 1941 after an article sympathetic to the Irish Republican Army appeared in the party newspaper, "Unity". [" [http://www.workersrepublic.org/Pages/Ireland/Communism/cpihistory2.html The Communist Party of Ireland: A Critical History] "]

When the all-Ireland CPI dissolved in 1941, Sinclair remained an active member of the Communist Party, Northern Ireland (CPNI) and served as its Secretary from 1942 to 1945. She stood for the group in Belfast Cromac at the Northern Ireland general election, 1945, taking almost one third of the votes. 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 the NICRA's chairperson until 1969, when she resigned, claiming that 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.

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