Died: April 23rd, 2021
Detta OâCathain, who died in Sussex on April 23rd after a short illness, aged 83, was the most successful Irish woman there had ever been in the business and political life of Britain, ending up as a leading Conservative in the House of Lords.
It was a far cry from her Irish background whose nationalism was signalled by the use of the Gaelic form of the surname Kane. Her paternal grandfather, a customs officer, was an early member of the Gaelic League in Ulster. He was forced by intimidation to move south from Belfast. Her father was based in Cork as a tax inspector when Margaret, known as Detta, the eldest of three children, was born on February 2nd, 1938.