Miriam Daly (née McDonnell; 6 May 1928 – 26 June 1980) was an Irish republican and communist activist as well as a university lecturer who was assassinated by the loyalist Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in 1980.

They moved to Ireland in 1968 and were appointed lecturers in the departments of scholastic philosophy and of economic and social history at Queen's University, Belfast.

[2] Apart from her set course, Daly taught an extramural course on labour history whose students included numerous Protestant trade unionists.

She was a founding member of the Irish Labour History Society, served on its committee for several years and co-edited its journal Saothar.

As a member of the SDLP she butted heads with John Hume and opposed advocacy for increased private home ownership rather than extended state housing.

At the first SDLP annual conference, Daly led opposition to a motion condemning all political violence that was proposed by Hume.

[1] The rapid escalation of violence in Northern Ireland during this period, in particular, the killing of 14 civil rights marchers by members of 1 PARA in Derry on 14 January 1972 in what later became known as "Bloody Sunday" further radicalised her.

[4] Some later IRSP/INLA material describes Daly as a 'volunteer', but she was never a member of the Irish National Liberation Army, the IRSP's military wing.

[5][1] In 1974 the Dalys, who had received death threats, moved from their home in Stranmillis, close to Queen's University and working-class Protestant loyalist districts, to the Andersonstown Road, deep within the west Belfast Catholic ghetto.

[citation needed] According to reports in The Irish Times, members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) had gained entry to her home with the intention of killing her husband.

Daly developed this view from her academic research into 19th-century Ireland and in particular her analysis of the deindustrialising effect of improved transport links.

[1] Daly rejected the view that Ulster Protestants form a distinct "nation" within the geography of Ireland, dismissing them as "a product of British colonial manipulation and native collaboration".