A poet and political activist, my mother, Kate Dunlop, who has died aged 73, was a passionate campaigner for justice and her local community.
Born Catherine McElroy, in Bartley Green, Birmingham, to a close-knit immigrant Irish family, she grew up in the austerity of the postwar years. Her father, Patrick, had been a farmer in Co Monaghan, in the Irish Republic. He left his homeland for the US during the 1930s, but had to return because of the depression. He ended up in Liverpool, where he met and married Ellen Donnelly, a cook. Kate, the youngest of four, never forgot the tough times. She railed against injustice right to the end, most recently as a member of the pressure group Communities Against the Cuts.
