[3] The NIWC was founded by Catholic academic Monica McWilliams and Protestant social worker Pearl Sagar to contest elections to the Northern Ireland Forum, the body for all-party talks which led to the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.

[5] The creation of the NIWC is usually traced back to a meeting over dinner between Avila Kilmurray, a former trade union official and former director of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, and McWilliams in April 1996.

They attended the negotiations dominated by the other 108 representatives and supported (but did not, as often reported, sign) the ensuing intergovernmental Good Friday Agreement.

Some academics have speculated that the NIWC's existence forced other party leaders to pay more attention to women's interests in their campaigning during the election.

[11] McWilliams stood unsuccessfully as a candidate in the 2001 United Kingdom general election, securing 2,968 votes in South Belfast (7.8%).

The party's last remaining elected representative lost her seat on North Down Borough Council in 2005, where the NIWC secured 0.1% of the Northern Ireland vote.