University of Virginia Library

Devlin Cancels Tentative Engagement Here,
To Speak Despite Protest In Lynchburg

By Holly Smith
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Bernadette Devlin, outspoken British
Parliament member tentatively slated to
speak at the University on March 9, has
cancelled her engagement, University
Union officials announced yesterday.

Although Miss Devlin is speaking at
Randolph-Macon College on March 6 she
has cancelled all appearances after that
date and will return to Ireland.

The University Union had no formal
contract for Miss Devlin's appearance,
merely a tentative agreement by the American
Program Bureau that, if her schedule permitted,
she would appear in Charlottesville.

Randolph-Macon's Social Committee, which
scheduled Miss Devlin in early November,
understood at that time she would be leaving
the country to return to Ireland on March 8.
Social Committee Chairman Cathy Lachcot

reports that the Lynchburg newspapers and
many of its citizens are irate over Miss Devlin's
appearance on the Randolph-Macon campus.
They object to Miss Devlin's communistic
leanings and radical ideas.

Miss Devlin is the youngest member of the
British Parliament, having left her university to
join that body at age 21. She is currently
appealing her six month jail sentence incurred
for helping to organize resistance to police in
the Londonderry riots last August.

The country Miss Devlin represents has
recently been plagued with new violence. On
Saturday terrorists killed two policemen in the
Ardoyne district of Belfast. Earlier in February
two soldiers were shot and killed in the Irish
capital.

Miss Devlin will speak at 8 p.m. on
Saturday, March 6, in the Smith Auditorium at
Randolph Macon.