Recently re-elected MEP Mairead McGuinness happily agreed to write the foreword for Nuala Fennell's forthcoming memoir. In this excerpt from the foreword, McGuinness explains why.

'I did most of my growing up during the time when Nuala Fennell was making her presence felt in the Ireland of the late 1960s onwards. I have vague memories of that Ireland but this book reminds me all too clearly that Irish society was neither equal nor fair and that much needed to be done to fix the problem. It was a time of opening-up, of awakening, of campaigning, of some success and some failure too. Social change is never easy. And the job is not entirely done. Nuala Fennell, along with other like-minded women, began a crusade to make a difference. They were viewed with suspicion, yet they and others who joined them did make a real difference to many lives, including those who secretly were afraid of the changes they were attempting to bring about.'

This memoir, which is due for publication in September 2009, tells the story of a young middle-class mother of three, Nuala Fennell, who from her home in suburban south Dublin became part of a movement that changed Ireland’s social and legislative landscape for ever. Nuala Fennell first became involved in the Womena’s Liberation Movement with women like June Levine and Mary Kenny, then helped to found AIM. the family support organisation, in 1972. AIM compaigned for women’s rights in family law, until then a very low priority for successive governments, and achieved radical changes. Nuala Fennell was later involved in Women’s Aid and in setting up the family mediation service when she served as a junior minister in Garret Fitzgerald’s coalition government 1982-7. Her remarkable achievements, as a woman inside and outside politics, were a lasting legacy to Irishwomen and Irishmen of today.