Brid Rodgers (62) is a native Irish speaker from Gweedore, Co Donegal, but has lived since 1960 in the tense sectarian cauldron of mid-Ulster where her husband, also from Gweedore, was a dentist.
Her involvement in the civil rights movement and politics goes back as far as 1965 and in 1969 she led the first civil rights march through Lurgan.
In 1983 she was appointed to Seanad Eireann by the then Taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald, when she was general secretary of the SDLP. She was previously party chairperson.
Long a local councillor in recent years she has been the SDLP's political representative during the various Drumcree disputes, ensuring that local activists and republicans did not totally monopolise the nationalist viewpoint. She has six children.