Originally from Northern Ireland, where her family owned 'a string of off-license shops'. Her grandfather, as editor of the Freeman's Journal, supported Parnell, and was sacked for his audacity. He sued for wrongful dismissal, won his case but subsequently moved to Dublin. In 1910, when Kay and her brother Willie were orphaned, he assumed full parental responsibility and maintained a home for both in North Circular Road, Dublin. Kay McDowell was sent to the Holy Faith convent, in Glasnevin, where she was considered an exceptional pupil. Intended, along with her brother Willie, for a career in law, she was articled in her uncle's office in 1915. In the same year, however, her brother left Ireland for France to serve as a Volunteer. In early 1916, he was killed. She abandoned law as a career, studied commerce at Rosses College in Skerries, and, at the age of 20, left for London. In 1921, at her uncle's behest, she returned to Dublin and was introduced by him to his client, Louie Bennett, General Secretary of the Irish Women Worker's Union. The union bore fruit, and in 1922 Kay was invited to apply for a position in the IWWU, the beginning of a lifelong commitment to serve the working women of Ireland A woman who rejected a range of suitors - 'barristers and judges' - Miss McDowell maintained a distance between her private and her working life. In the former, she was deemed 'very game'; in the latter 'the bluestocking type', notable for 'recognising the limits of her own power at the committee table'. Although she was the main official for the printers, she also 'put order' on the IWWU - introduced systems, details of membership, etc. While Helen Chenevix featured strongly behind the scenes and with employers, Kay McDowell was the leading spirit of the strike and very much an influence in encouraging the women to take hold of their own grievances and to effect serious change. In 1947, having demonstrated her 'great determination when we had our backs to the wall', she was nominated by the IWWU as Dail candidate for the Labour Party. Although not elected, this marked the beginning of a more public role for Miss McDowell - in 1948 she was a founder member of The People's College; in 1949, a Labour Party delegate to the British Labour Party Annual Convention and, in 1951, she was seconded to act on the Government Prices Advisory Committee. By 1957, she had been elected General Secretary of the IWWU. In the same year she became the first woman to be elected to the Administrative Council of the Labour Party, and in 1959 to the Executive Committee of the ICTU. Personally reticent, she was immensely capable in the presentation of her case and Kay McDowell, the woman who 'put me in mind of Betty Davis', bequeathed to the members of the IWWU that most telling of legacies: the political will to concede the case.