ACTOR MERYL Streep will take on the role of Northern Ireland trade unionist and human rights activist Inez McCormack in a performance at an international summit in New York.
The Oscar winner, who last played an Irish role in the 1998 film version of Dancing at Lughnasa, will tell the Belfast woman's story in Seven, a documentary play about the lives of campaigning women from Northern Ireland, Russia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Guatemala and Cambodia.
The one-off performance, including actors Marcia Gay Harden and Lauren Vélez, will be introduced by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and staged on Friday, March 12th, at the Hudson theatre, on the opening night of a three-day “Women in the World” summit.
Some 1,000 women from the worlds of politics, media, social activism, business and the arts are expected to attend the summit including France’s minister for finance Christine Lagarde, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, Queen Rania of Jordan and the Congolese journalist and anti-rape activist Chouchou Namegabe.
Ms McCormack, who now lives in Derry, became a trade union and equality activist following her involvement in the Northern Ireland civil rights movement in the late 1960s.
She campaigned to organise and revalue the work and contribution of the “forgotten” workers, most of whom were women. She was the first woman president of Ictu and she was named the 2008 Northern Ireland Woman of the Year for her services to women, human rights and communities.
Ms McCormack, who will attend the summit, said “it is very humbling to have your life story represented in this way and a privilege to have an Oscar-winning actress and strong female character like Meryl Streep involved in the dramatisation.
“I have had the privilege of spending a lifetime at the service of warm, strong women, who challenged injustice not just for themselves but for the people and communities they cared for and whose only affirmation has been that of their own conscience.”
The "Women in the World" summit is organised by "The Daily Beast", a blog site edited by former Vanity Faireditor Tina Brown.
