1. Luchia Fitzgerald

Luchia Fitzgerald is a 74 year-old activist for gay liberation and women's rights. Born in Bessborough mother and baby home outside Cork City, she was brought up by her grandmother from the age of four years-old,until she ran away to Manchester as a teenager in 1961 following physical and mental abuse from her family. After a period of living on the streets, she met another Irish Woman, Angela Cooper, by chance at an underground gay bar. Together, they co-founded the Manchester branch of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), opened the city’s first women’s refuge, launched a radical queer printing press and organised demonstrations in defiance of Margaret Thatcher’s repressive Section 28 bill. As she has aged Luchia has remained politically engaged and now fights on behalf of older LGBT people.