Month: March 2023

First published October 12th 2019 by Socialist Party

Long standing member of the Socialist Party in Belfast David (Davy) Bell has died at the age of 69. Davy joined Militant, the forerunner of the Socialist Party in 1978 and across more than four decades dedicated himself to selfless activity on behalf of the working class.   

Davy came from a Protestant background and grew up in the Cregagh estate in East Belfast. He liked to say that he once “skinned” George Best, who was also from Cregagh, when playing football as a teenager!   He worked for British Telecom and was an activist in the Communication Workers Union (CWU), attending national conferences of the union, and working with is comrades Bernard Roome and Judy Griffiths and many other genuine lefts to overcome the dead weight of the dominant bureaucratic layer. In his union role he represented literally hundreds of workers over many years. His patient approach to trade union work gave him hard-earned respect and standing and he was well known in his own area as a “union man” who would help out with a benefit claim and countless other tasks.