Ellen Pamela McCafferty[1] (28 March 1944 – 21 August 2024) was an Irish journalist, playwright, civil rights campaigner, and feminist.

[6] In 1971, she travelled to Belfast with other members of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement in order to protest the prohibition of the importation and sale of contraceptives in the Republic of Ireland.

In it, she explores her upbringing in Derry, her relationship with her parents, her fears about being gay,[13] the joy of finding a domestic haven with the love of her life, the Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain, and the pain of their separation.

In 2009, after the publication of the Murphy Report into the abuse of children in the Dublin archdiocese, McCafferty confronted Archbishop Diarmuid Martin asking him why the Catholic Church had not, as a "gesture of redemption", relinquished styles of address such as "Your Eminence" and "Your Grace.

"[14] McCafferty caused a controversy in 2010 with a declaration in a live Newstalk radio interview that the then Minister for Health, Mary Harney, was an alcoholic.

"[18] McCafferty received an honorary doctorate of literature from University College Cork on 2 November 2016 for "her unparalleled contribution to Irish public life over many decades and her powerful voice in movements that have had a transformative impact in Irish society, including the feminist movement, campaigns for civil rights and for the marginalised and victims of injustice".

[6] The couple owned a cottage in west Ireland prior to their acrimonious separation in 1995;[2] they were partly reconciled by the time of O'Faolain's death.