Emma Groves: Emma Groves, who has died peacefully aged 86, became - for some - an icon of the Troubles at the peak of bloodshed and political chaos in Northern Ireland.
She was 50 and the youngest of her dozen children was aged five when she was blinded by a rubber bullet fired at close range by a British soldier through the window of her living-room in Andersonstown in 1972.
The incident occurred as paratroopers saturated parts of Derry and Belfast in the "Motorman" exercise to end "no-go" areas. Motorman came shortly after the IRA's Bloody Friday bombings, in which nine were killed and more than 100 injured when 20 bombs exploded in Belfast in just over an hour.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, in Belfast to visit the Indian nuns sent to help in trouble-torn districts, was by Groves's bedside when she came around after surgery to break the news that she had lost her sight.
According to a childhood neighbour of the Groves family in Andersonstown, the republican journalist and newspaper publisher Mairtín Ó Muilleóir, the shooting happened when soldiers ordered people off the streets.
"The paratroopers led the push and the IRA, sensibly, disappeared. We were told that to protest against the order to stay in-doors, Emma had put on the record Four Green Fieldsand opened the window . . .
"The next day, the press arrived to cover the story of a local British Army commander arriving with a bouquet of flowers to apologise. What they didn't show on British TV for 15 years after the attack was footage by a French film crew which showed Emma being rushed from her home, blood covering her face."
Andersonstown Newseditor Robin Livingstone, whose 14-year-old sister Julie was killed years later by a plastic bullet, was a friend of Emma Groves's nephew and described the effect in the district.
Soldiers had liked to watch the children playing cricket - "yes, cricket" - on the small local green and occasionally had been allowed to "have a bowl". After Emma, our only response to their approaches was scared and sullen silence".
After the death of John Downes, shot at close range on camera during unrest as police tried to make an arrest at a 1984 rally, Emma Groves became a campaigner, with lifelong friend Clara Reilly, against the use of the plastic bullets which replaced rubber bullets as riot control standard issue to police and army.
Despite the loss of her sight, she continued to cook for her family and walked around her home unaided, Ms Reilly said, but suffered depression for some years after operations to rebuild her shattered face.
"It hurt her deeply that she never saw the faces of her grandchildren or great-grandchildren."
They travelled together to the European Parliament, to Scotland to picket at the factory which manufactured plastic bullets and to the US where Groves addressed shareholders of the manufacturing company and convinced it to cease production.
"Once she told her story," said Ms Reilly, "the doubters were won over."
Rubber and plastic bullets caused 17 deaths, seven of which were children, and several hundred injuries. All but one of those killed were Catholic. Inquests found that only four victims had been shot during rioting but opinion polls throughout the conflict demonstrated that while one side of the community regarded them as offensive weapons, the other saw them as essential defence for police and soldiers.
A handsome woman in dark glasses, Emma Groves was a well-known figure in west Belfast, walking arm in arm with Ms Reilly or one of her daughters. Into her 80s, when she suffered several strokes, she continued to join public protests about the damage caused by rubber and plastic bullets. They were last used during a riot in September 2002.
Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde last January acknowledged that some of those killed had been innocent and said the police would not use plastic bullets again.
Emma Groves, who died in a Belfast nursing home, was predeceased by her husband William and son Bill. She is survived by 11 children, 42 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren.
Emma Groves, born Belfast 1921; died Belfast April 2nd 2007.