The creation of the NIWC is usually traced back to a meeting over dinner between Avila Kilmurray, a former trade union official and former director of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, and McWilliams in April 1996. The pair discussed ways in which women could be "written into, rather than out of" the Northern Ireland peace process. Working with the Northern Ireland Women's European Forum, they unsuccessfully lobbied the Northern Ireland Office to require parties to submit gender-balanced lists for the Northern Ireland Forum elections. Having failed, the NIWC was hastily assembled to contest the election.