civil rights – Manchester Historian

Devlin was born in 1947 to a working-class Catholic family in Cookstown, Tyrone. Tyrone was a predominantly Catholic county, but Cookstown was mixed. She described the tension between Republicans, who believe in a united Ireland, and Unionists, who support British involvement to create a ‘unified’ state.

Tucked away behind the multi-storey car park of Manchester Royal Infirmary lies the birth of the Suffragette movement: the Pankhurst Centre. Once the home of radical feminist pioneers, the Pankhurst family, the building is now home to the Pankhurst Trust and Manchester Women’s Aid. It would be hard to find a single person in Manchester who did not know a single thing about the Suffragettes or the Pankhurst family, but the story of what happened to the building after the family left is hardly common knowledge at all.

Last month, the Belgians legalised euthanasia, a definitive moment in the changing understanding of suicide. Helen Chapman discovers how the definition of crime has changed through time.

Isabella Leyh summarises 1963 in ten photos from around the globe.