My mother, Rose McCann, who has died aged 95, in the 1960s joined the struggle for peace in Northern Ireland.
Part of a generation that tried to resist the anarchy, mob rule and life-denying cynicism of the era, Rose made a home for our family in west Belfast, and planted her flamboyant, abundant garden in surroundings scarred by vandalism, barbed wire and political graffiti. She worked as a counter clerk at the local post office, which was weekly raided by Republican thugs. Her positive perseverance inspired her neighbours, at a time when even the efforts of Mother Teresa of Calcutta to empower local people in Ballymurphy were thwarted by local politics. As Mother Teresa waited to catch a train out of Belfast in 1971, the nuns brought her to my mother for a meal.
