The civil rights marchs in northern Ireland

steddyeddy

As I posted before I had an uncle that played a part in organising the civil rights marchs. Now this an emotive subject so I thought I would post here in an attempt to get an objective view of the marchs, the times and the people involved. Im writing this in part because the views I have on the marchs have contrasted with other peoples views.

For example Im keen to stress that some protestents did indeed march in the event so I would contest the way some people say it was a catholic movement. The second point I would make is the ira didnt get involved untill later on and when they did my uncle and other members of the sdlp backed off. The third issue I have is when people say they should have also marched for the protestent working class community, to be honest I think this is rubbish as there was no state discrimination against protestents at the time. The final point is that I think the civil rights marchs were seen as the catalyst for the troubles I do not think the civil rights marchs caused the troubles but instead think it was the reaction to the civil rights marchs that caused the troubles.

Anyway those are my views but what does everyone else think? Will the civil rights marchs be viewed in a negative light or a positive light in years to come. Did they do more harm than good?

CDfm

Have you thought of their global influences -summer of love and there were civil rights movements and young peoples and students movements worldwide.

Also, how and when did they become infiltrated by more extreme politics.

I seem to remember at College in the 80's that the USI used to send speakers from Soviet style regimes. The one I remember is a post Live Aid Ethiopian army officer looking type coming to meet students etc so there was a radicalisation of student politics not reflected in the student population.

Some years later you had the Peace Movement.

Delancey

I doubt if the Civil Rights movement will ever be viewed other than through partisan eyes - Nationalist will view it positively while Unionist will be the opposite.
Some 40 years later I don't think those views have changed and I doubt they will be much different 40 years hence.......

I think they bravely sought to highlight injustice and discrimination but others will argue they were a recruiting agent for the IRA ( not that I've seen much evidence to support that assertion ).

CDfm

Delancey wrote: »

I think they bravely sought to highlight injustice and discrimination but others will argue they were a recruiting agent for the IRA ( not that I've seen much evidence to support that assertion ).

Of a harbinger for/of ...

So , its leaders , who were they initially and what became of them and, was there a change of leadership and if so to whom and who wre they.

Also, did they have political affiliations ???

HellsAngel

As can be seen from the table of deaths, the first deaths in the troubles were carried out by the RUC and B Specials, including the murder of 9 year old Patrick Rooney as he slept in the Divis flats when the RUC machine gunned the flats. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1969.html

After the 4 days of rioting in Derry and Belfast in late August 1969, when the IRA had barely any arms to defend their areas, mainly thanks to the 'Dublin leadership' of useless good for nothings and drunks such as Cathal Goulding, Sean Garland and Tomas McGiolla who later went on to form what they called the Offical IRA. Such was the disgust at the IRA in Belfast and Derry, that young people wrote on the walls IRA - I Ran Away. So much for the IRA hijacking the Civil Rights movement to start the troubles so they could step in as the defenders.

As bad as things were going to become, I think any reasonable person can agree that their's one individual more than any other who ignited the troubles -

Nhead

Dr Brian Hanley has done some work in this area and he was saying that the I ran away graffiti( for that time)has never been found. He has published a book entitled: The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers Party (Brian Hanley & Scott Millar). I have it but haven't read it yet!!

CDfm

HellsAngel wrote: »

As bad as things were going to become, I think any reasonable person can agree that their's one individual more than any other who ignited the troubles -

Personalities to one side here, was there a situation where there were poor catholics and protestants.

Labours Harold Wilson was Prime Minister from 1964 to 1970. Divorce, abortion, homosexuality legislation all were part of life as was the Trade Union movement and anti racial discrimination programmes. There was concern about immigration and Enoch Powell delivered his rivers of blood speach.

This was something very different to the growth of the labour movement in Britain for instance.

From 1964 to 1970 you had prosperity in Britain , the Beatles,Martin Luther King, the Kennedy's the Mini and TV so it was very much in your face.

Protest also went pop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oU7M4OeSRM

And you had protests in Paris, Chicago , Washington etc , so it was not exclusively a NI thing.

MarchDub

CDfm wrote: »

And you had protests in Paris, Chicago , Washington etc , so it was not exclusively a NI thing.

There is no dispute that the Civil Rights marches in NI were influenced by the civil rights marches in the US - those of us who lived through the period can clearly remember the US marches blazoned on TV news. And these US marches began well before 1968.

The formation of the NI Civil Rights Association in 1967 included much references to the 'success' of the African-American experience in their non-violent approach via civil rights marches. The huge march on Washington of 1963 was well known in Ireland at the time. And the passage then of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a case in point.

Unfortunately the outcome in NI was not peaceful nor met initially with political insight.

CDfm

What was the political response ?

steddyeddy

CDfm wrote: »

What was the political response ?

There was no real political response after the civil rights movement. Some politicians wanted to grant some of the demands following the initial marchs. The aftermath of the civil rights movement which signified the start of the troubles had practically no political response in my opinion. At least no political response that dealt with the reasons why the men were marching.

steddyeddy

CDfm wrote: »

Of a harbinger for/of ...

So , its leaders , who were they initially and what became of them and, was there a change of leadership and if so to whom and who wre they.

Also, did they have political affiliations ???

My uncle was a historian and one of the founding members of the sdlp as were a lot of people involved in the march. Saying that there was also people both catholic and protestent who were from a moderatly unionist background so I dont think it would be fair to call it an sdlp movement. The other leaders I know less about. During the troubles and after boody sunday my uncle didnt really participate in politics as he thought the problem had changed.

He was geniunly shocked at the response of the ruc some of who he knew in a friendly capacity. Some of his protestent friends who supported the marchs were threatened at gun point for asociating with the marchs and many left the country. Many of his catholic friends were burnt out of their homes and he himself moved to the south when friends of his who were a protestent-catholic couple were mutilated. He or his friends were definatly not in the ira nor was the march used to recruit members although the ira did uss civil rights as a ideal.

Heres the document detailing my uncles dealings with the ruc when he tried to organise the march.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/proni/1968/proni_HA-32-2-27_1968-08-28.pdf

MarchDub

steddyeddy wrote: »

There was no real political response after the civil rights movement. Some politicians wanted to grant some of the demands following the initial marchs. The aftermath of the civil rights movement which signified the start of the troubles had practically no political response in my opinion. At least no political response that dealt with the reasons why the men were marching.

Yes, that's exactly the point I was making and I agree totally. The early marches were met with violence by the UVF, which had re-organised in 1966 - and the initial and only 'political' response was to ban the marches and all but ignore the aspirations of the marchers.

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

Yes, that's exactly the point I was making and I agree totally. The early marches were met with violence by the UVF, which had re-organised in 1966 - and the initial and only 'political' response was to ban the marches and all but ignore the aspirations of the marchers.

I know very little on this but 1966 was also the 50th Anniversary of 1916 which was huge.


The then Prime Minister of NI Terrence O'Neill had engaged with Lemass on closer trade links with the South.He had founded Colraine University which has catholic entry etc.

He banned the UVF.

From the little I know O'Neill was one of the good guys and anti-sectarian . His supporter George Forrest MP was attacked on the 12 July 1967 by Unionists and died soon afterwards.

So there were moderate and liberal unionists.

EDIT - And it would be helpful to have some extra detail on who was who in NI at the time.

A little bit of electoral detail and emergence of Bernadette Devlin

Westminster Election, 18 June 1970
Bernadette Devlin (Unity) 37,739 (53.5%)
William John Thornton (U) 31,810 (45.1%)
Michael Cunningham (Ind) 771 (1.1%)
Phelim F O'Neill (Ind) 198 (0.3%)

Unity majority: 5,929; electorate: 77,143; votes cast: 91.4%

Mid-Ulster returned to the polls only fourteen months after the last outing. Devlin's stature had grown in the interim and her participation in the 'Battle of the Bogside' had led to her arrest and conviction on incitement to riot. As a result Devlin served a short jail term. In the highest turnout of the election in Northern Ireland, Devlin increased her majority to just under 6,000 votes. Although elected under the 'Unity' banner, shortly after the election Devlin declared that she would sit in Parliament as an Independent Socialist.
Westminster By-Election, 17 April 1969
Bernadette Devlin (Unity) 33,648 (53.3%)
Anna Forrest (U) 29,437 (46.7%)

Unity majority: 4,211; electorate 68,973; votes cast: 91.5%

George Forrest who had represented Mid-Ulster since 1956, died in December 1968. In the resulting by-election, the Unionist Party selected his widow, Anna Forrest, as their candidate. On the nationalist side, the agreed Unity candidate was Bernadette Devlin. Devlin, a psychology student at the Queens University of Belfast, had taken a prominent role in the People's Democracy civil-rights organisation. She had also opposed James Chichester-Clark in the Northern Ireland general election of 1969.

Anna Forrest, who apparently did not campaign, managed to poll only 300 votes less than her husband's 1966 tally. However Devlin was able to rally the nationalist vote and topped the poll with a healthy majority of 4,211 votes. At the age of 21, Devlin became the youngest MP at the time and remains the youngest woman ever to have been elected to the British Parliament.

One interesting side note on George Forrest is that he was an ardent supporter of the embattled Prime Minister Terrence O'Neill. The opposition to O'Neill's reforms was so strong that on the 12th of July 1967, George Forrest was pulled from a platform in Coagh and kicked unconscious. It is not believed that this incident played any role in his untimely death.

http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/dmu.htm

Marching in NI is a very touchy subject historically.

steddyeddy

CDfm ill post a more detailed reply later when im not in work but some moderate unionists marched with the civil rights groups and those moderate unionists were also attacked and threatened by extreme sectarian unionists. The more extreme unionists used propaganda that the civil rights marchs were really the cira under a guise and wanted to kill protestents ect.

MarchDub

steddyeddy wrote: »

CDfm ill post a more detailed reply later when im not in work but some moderate unionists marched with the civil rights groups and those moderate unionists were also attacked and threatened by extreme sectarian unionists. The more extreme unionists used propaganda that the civil rights marchs were really the cira under a guise and wanted to kill protestents ect.

Yes, there were Protestants in the Civil Rights movement but they were threatened. I suppose the best known Protestant was Ivan Cooper the Protestant member of the Belfast Parliament who was I think one of the leaders of the Bloody Sunday March in 1972.

I also have a memory of the Orange Order showing up to protest and attack the early marchers sometimes dressed in full regalia - are there any photos now of this?

steddyeddy

MarchDub wrote: »

Yes, there were Protestants in the Civil Rights movement but they were threatened. I suppose the best known Protestant was Ivan Cooper the Protestant member of the Belfast Parliament who was I think one of the leaders of the Bloody Sunday March in 1972.

I also have a memory of the Orange Order showing up to protest and attack the early marchers sometimes dressed in full regalia - are there any photos now of this?

The orange order did indeed protest against the civil rights marchs particularly when the marchers tried to enter a part of derry known as the diamond, a part of the city important to them.

The civil rights marchs were described by then minister for home affairs Bill Craig as "a front for the ira" thats were the myth came from. He was backed by john taylor another minister who also accused them of being the ira. This in their mind was reason enough not to grant equal rights for catholics and by making these statements they encouraged people of simular views towards catholics to attack the marchers

lebowski11

Bernadette Devlin and the student movement Peoples Democracy brought the civil rights movement in the North to a more radical level. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association were the original organization. When Peoples Democracy emerged they were less engaged with the 'senior' political organizations at the time and thus were more radicalised than NICRA.

It was Peoples Democracy that organized the infamous march from Belfast to Derry in January 1969 that reignited the extreme violence that became prevelant in the North at the end of the 60's. Peoples Democracy went ahead with the march in spite of calls for its cancelation by NICRA and nationalist politicians. To me this has always seemed like an act of provocation by Peoples Democracy. Devlin and the other members knew well that the march would draw a violent response from Loyalists which in turn meant that the event would gain widespread coverage. In this sense the Peoples Democracy march in 1969 was succesful. But at what cost? Nationalist opinion on the civil rights issue rightfully intensified. However community relations between nationalists and loyalists slipped beyond repairable solutions and sectarianism became even more widespread.

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For anyone who may interested, Bernadette Devlin's book 'The Price of my Soul' is a great read for anyone thats interested in this period of Northern Irish history. It is predictably onesided but also gives a good insight into the radicalisation of nationalist politics at the time.

HellsAngel

lebowski11 wrote: »

Bernadette Devlin and the student movement Peoples Democracy brought the civil rights movement in the North to a more radical level. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association were the original organization. When Peoples Democracy emerged they were less engaged with the 'senior' political organizations at the time and thus were more radicalised than NICRA.

It was Peoples Democracy that organized the infamous march from Belfast to Derry in January 1969 that reignited the extreme violence that became prevelant in the North at the end of the 60's. Peoples Democracy went ahead with the march in spite of calls for its cancelation by NICRA and nationalist politicians. To me this has always seemed like an act of provocation by Peoples Democracy. Devlin and the other members knew well that the march would draw a violent response from Loyalists which in turn meant that the event would gain widespread coverage. In this sense the Peoples Democracy march in 1969 was succesful. But at what cost? Nationalist opinion on the civil rights issue rightfully intensified. However community relations between nationalists and loyalists slipped beyond repairable solutions and sectarianism became even more widespread.

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Ah yes, it's blame the victim time again :rolleyes: Forgive me for thinking but from the post above you'd almost think it was the People Democracy who attacked the Paisleyites and the RUC :rolleyes:

The march from Belfast to the north's second city Derry (" Derry the capital city of injustice" as Bernadette Devlin called it back then and couldn't have been more appropirate ) was based on as the 'infamous' Selma to Montgomery* marches in Alabama. The Selma march was organised by students in support of Civil Rights in the southern states and the young students of the People's Democracy which contained Protestants as well as Catholics, only wished to emulate it. Just like the Selma march it was met with violence, though from unionist bigots and rednecks instead of KKK bigots and rednecks in the deep south.

As for the "act of provocation by Peoples Democracy ", just like the Selma march couldn't go to Montgomery without by passing a predominately redneck area, likewise it's impossible to go from Belfast to Derry without going through a unionist area especially in north Antrim and East Derry - unless you go across the top of the Antrim and Sperrin Mts. And it should also be noted that Burntollet bridge is outside the predominatly nationalist town of Bellaghy, so obviously the unionists had to travel there in order for the "act of provocation by Peoples Democracy ", to take place. Indeed almost every Civil Rights march under the excuse of 'provocation' was met with hostility form the unionists, even when held in nationalist districts like the Bogside. And indeed in more recent times we have seen what unionists consider 'provocation' with attacks on children from Ardoyne trying to walk to school at Holycross**.

Some NICRA leaders were against the march, though others were for it as it basically only wanted the same as NICRA, end to discrimination and gerrymandering etc And Burntollet didn't "reignite the extreme violence that became prevelant in the North", earlier Civil Rights marches were been atatcked by the RUC and unionists from October 1968. It should also be pointed out that the moderate, humane unionist Paisley was present at Burntollet, so much for "an act of provocation by Peoples Democracy." :rolleyes:

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Cross_dispute

For anyone who may interested, Bernadette Devlin's book 'The Price of my Soul' is a great read for anyone thats interested in this period of Northern Irish history. It is predictably onesided but also gives a good insight into the radicalisation of nationalist politics at the time.

Yes I have read read the Price of My Soul and it's about as " predictably onesided " as say, Jesse Jackson's views on the Civil Rights movement in America

Here's an good archived report on Burntollet from RTE -

http://www.rte.ie/laweb/ll/ll_t11o.html

MarchDub

HellsAngel wrote: »

The march from Belfast to the north's second city Derry (" Derry the capital city of injustice" as Bernadette called it back then and couldn't have been more appropirate ) was based on as the 'infamous' Selma to Montgomery* marches in Alabama. The Selma march was organised by students in support of Civil Rights and the young students of the People's Democracy, which contained Protestants as well as Catholics, only wished to copy it. Just like the Selma march it was met with violence, though from unionist bigots and rednecks instead of KKK bigots and rednecks in the deep south.

Yes, there was a similarity in how the 'opposition' reacted to the marches both in NI and the deep south - and having lived for awhile in the deep south of the US in the 1970s there were a lot of similarities.

HellsAngel wrote: »

Yes I have read read the Price of My Soul and it's about as " predictably onesided " as say, Jesse Jackson's views on the Civil Rights movement in America

I haven't read Devlin's work but am very familiar with Jackson's' views of the civil rights movements and yes, it is 'one sided' as you say - as is the view of John Lewis, now a member of the US Congress. Lewis was beaten up by the KKK in Annistan, Alabama during the march. But the question that Lewis and others who marched in 1963 posed was 'what side is the Federal Government on?' - and this too was the issue in NI. Never mind the thugs attacking the marchers - what was government going to do about civil rights? This was the very heart of the matter.

lebowski11

Believe me when I say that it was not my intention to depict Unionist violence as necessary or forgivable.


I don't believe that I was blaming the victim, I was merely stating an opinion that the marchers understood what awaited them on the way Derry. They carried on knowing full well that they would be attacked and that their actions would gain widespread media coverage.


This can either be considered to be a clever ploy that gained attention for the march or subjectively, it can also be considered as an act of recklesness that propogated even more sectarianism at a time when both Unionist and Nationalist politicians were already struggling to contain a situation that was steadily progressing towards a complete breakdown in civil order. I don't demand your consensus on the issue, I was just stating an opinion on the latter part of the civil rights marches that I felt had not been addressed in the thread.


Also, I did not wish to sound disingenuous when I referred to Devlin's book. But it is an autobiography, and of course its predictably onesided.

MarchDub

lebowski11 wrote: »

I don't believe that I was blaming the victim, I was merely stating an opinion that the marchers understood what awaited them on the way Derry. They carried on knowing full well that they would be attacked and that their actions would gain widespread media coverage.


This can either be considered to be a clever ploy that gained attention for the march or subjectively, it can also be considered as an act of recklesness that propogated even more sectarianism at a time when both Unionist and Nationalist politicians were already struggling to contain a situation that was steadily progressing towards a complete breakdown in civil order. I don't demand your consensus on the issue, I was just stating an opinion on the latter part of the civil rights marches that I felt had not been addressed in the thread.

The Civil Rights marchers in the US faced the same threat of thuggery from the KKK - and the didn't back down either. Their marches went ahead and many were beaten up - and even had their homes attacked. Backing down from what was seen as a peaceful declaration of their rights would be to admit that they could be controlled by the thugs.

CDfm

The British Labour Party were in power, surely, they had a point of view on democracy ,one man one vote and the other equality policies ?

CDfm

An interesring article on Sectarian Advertising in the IT in the 1960's snd dont forget the ne temere rule was in operation

http://gcd.academia.edu/NiallMeehan/Papers/112400/Shorthand_for_Protestants_-_sectarian_advertising_in_the_Irish_Times

HellsAngel

lebowski11 wrote: »

Believe me when I say that it was not my intention to depict Unionist violence as necessary or forgivable.


I don't believe that I was blaming the victim, I was merely stating an opinion that the marchers understood what awaited them on the way Derry. They carried on knowing full well that they would be attacked and that their actions would gain widespread media coverage.


This can either be considered to be a clever ploy that gained attention for the march or subjectively, it can also be considered as an act of recklesness that propogated even more sectarianism at a time when both Unionist and Nationalist politicians were already struggling to contain a situation that was steadily progressing towards a complete breakdown in civil order. I don't demand your consensus on the issue, I was just stating an opinion on the latter part of the civil rights marches that I felt had not been addressed in the thread.


Also, I did not wish to sound disingenuous when I referred to Devlin's book. But it is an autobiography, and of course its predictably onesided.

Ok fair enough, I apologise if I was a bit sharpish but unfortunately every too often on the forum every half baked excuse is dreamt up by some unionist and British apologists to divert blame from the catalyst that started the troubles.

lebowski11

MarchDub wrote: »

The Civil Rights marchers in the US faced the same threat of thuggery from the KKK - and the didn't back down either. Their marches went ahead and many were beaten up - and even had their homes attacked. Backing down from what was seen as a peaceful declaration of their rights would be to admit that they could be controlled by the thugs.

I agree with you about how backing down would seem defeatist. However the situation in the North was different to the southern United States, particularly in late 68 through early 69. For one the undercurrent of sectarianism was threatening to undermine what NICRA (the original civil rights movement in the North) had achieved. From January 1969 the marches in the North became less about civil rights and become more about religious divisions. In others words the civil rights campaign had run its course. The politicians were ready confront the issues instead of ignoring tham like they had done since the 1920's.

I suppose in essence the point I have been trying to convey is that the People's Democracy march was very badly timed and the organizers failed to consider the consequences of it. In December 68, after a long battle for civil rights by NICRA, it appered that Northern leaders were finally trying to get a handle on the situation. Then PM Terence O'Neill had gained enormous support in his campaign to heal community divisions. Some 150,000 people signed a petition in support of his campaign. It seemed like something was finally being done to right the injustices of previous Unionist governments. I'm not sure who said this but there is a famous quote that states that "the civil rights movement had done more for catholics in 4 years than the IRA had done in 4 decades".

Prophetically, O'Neill said in December 1968 "Northern Ireland is at a crossroads, our conduct over the next few weeks will decide our future". It was amidst this background that the PD decided to have their march. NICRA were opposed to it for good reason. With politicians finally acting on healing community divisions the last thing the North needed was a major flashpoint that would drive a further wedge between both communities.

Burntollet did just that. Laterly one of the Peoples Democracy leaders Eamonn Mccann made the following statement. "We must acknowledge that the civil rights campaign failed in its primary task of building bridges to the protestant working class. We have alienated them (catholics) from their protestant neighbours more than ever". Of course the PD could not forsee the horrible realities of the troubles that were to come. However they really should have heeded the more seasoned civil rights campaigners when they were opposed to the march of January 1969. Effectively the PD march was counterproductive to the cause that NICRA had championed. All the old sectarian resentment resurfaced afterwards with terrible consequences.

Snickers Man

An important catalyst for both the Civil Rights Association and the People's Democracy movements was the 1944 Educaton Act in the UK.

This set up a state-funded meritocratic education system which provided free education to all school students. A statistically based selection process, namely an IQ test to be taken at the age of 11 (the Eleven Plus), identified the most academically able 20% of eleven year olds.

These were entitled to education at a grammar school, where academic subjects including languages, sciences and humanities deemed appropriate for gaining access to university were highlighted. The remainder could go to secondary modern schools where academic subjects were taught along more practical craft-based lessons like woodwork and metalwork.

What this meant was that a generation of working class kids could go to school with every expectation of winning a scholarship to university. This had a profound effect on many of the schools which now became grammar schools, not least on the venerable St Columbs' College in Derry, one of whose alumni was one of the early civil rights agitators in the 1960s, Eamon McCann.

In his book, War and an Irish Town, he describes the shock waves that went through this diocesan school, originally a junior seminary, when what he called "the tatty products of the Bogside who smoked and concerted with females outside school hours" arrived en masse in the late 1940s. The staid priests took quite a period to adjust and many of them resorted to bull whip tactics to keep the working class rabble in line.

What this meant was that by the end of the 1960s a generation of well educated, articulate, left-wing leaning Catholics emerged on to the Northern Ireland scene well able to articulate the institutionalised sectarianism and discrimination to which their community was subjected. They were also conditioned to be rebellious as a consequence of their being treated, even in their catholic schools, as upstarts and interlopers. And they determined to do something about it, very much in the manner of the civil rights movement in America or the anti-war and socialist student movements in France.

Naturally, left wing politics transcend sectarian boundaries, so there were initially at any rate many radical young protestants whose analysis of the situation tallied with their catholic counterparts. Both People's Democracy and the NICRA had many protestant members.

However, a change to the status quo in thinking in Northern Ireland naturally aroused sectarian fears on both sides. Paisley immediately stomped the streets denouncing the Civil Rights Movement as a Republican fifth column. Those who have read Bernadetted Devlin's (as she then was) The Price of My Soul may remember her astonishingly naive assertion that Paisley didn't really hate Catholics; what he really really hated were socialists!

Paisley and his followers hated anything that threatened to submerge the Protestant working class and their tuppeny ha'ppeny privileges which they guarded so fearfully against the tuppence people in the Catholic community.

Many Protestant radicals saw this instinctively, that the sectarianism inherent in Northern Ireland was straitjacketing their own community in a world of paranoia and poverty. It was an analysis that many of the loyalist terrorist groups, especially those led by Gusty Spence and David Irvine, came to belatedly after decades of strife.

However "provocative" the 1969 march from Belfast to Derry might have been it was organised by a bunch of student socialists and wishy washy liberals. It was NOT an IRA march. But after they had been beaten senseless by an Orange mob at Burntollet with the acquiesence of the RUC, good old fashioned national/sectarian hackles started to rise.

McCann is adamant (and was as far back as 1973 when he first wrote his book) that the various groups agitating for change in the 1960s were united on the point that partition was irrelevant, they were seeking to enforce change within the existing state. But when the brittle paranoid state structures started to clamp down on the agitators, the society fractured on older sectarian lines.

Of course there were always poor protestants as well as poor catholics. Just as there were poor whites as well as poor blacks in the US. If you were a poor white or a poor prod listening to the howls of protest from the blacks/taigs that they were being kept down, what was your most likely reaction?

To join with them in agitating that they be given a bigger slice of the pie while you got correspondingly less? Or to look around at your own meagre circumstances and conclude that these were feckless, indolent loud mouths basing their demands for silver spoons on a bogus and shameless charge of discrimination whether that was racially (US) or sectarianally (Northern Ireland) based? It took real guts and self confidence to preach that it was being divided and poor that was grinding down the protestant or poor white working classes.

Look at the evolution of the SDLP. In 1969 the main parties in Northern Ireland were the Ulster Unionists and the Nationalist party led by Eddie McAteer. There were other fringe groups like the Northern Ireland Labour Party (affilliated to the wider Labour movement in Britain) and the Liberal party (ditto, mutatis mutandis). The Unionists of course were officially part of the Tories.

But with the Civil Rights ferment the new voice representing what many felt the catholic working class stood for became the Social Democratic and Labour Party (initially the Labour and Social Democratic Party, until somebody pointed out that it was not a good idea to be the LSD Party!). That was not initially a Nationalist party, but it rapidly became one in the late 1970s as it saw off the old Nationalists. In much the same way that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael each came to resemble the old Parnellite Irish Parliamentary party once they took power rather than the radical Sinn Fein/IRB movements out of which they both supposedly grew.

Where we are at now in Northern Ireland is that it is a socialist utopia in which the dreams of the left-leaning student radicals, on both sides, have been realised. It is now a state-subsidised highly regulated administration which consists not of an economy but a welfare budget. Most people are either employed by the state or by private companies whose main customers are state bodies.

Parity of esteem and anti sectarian legislation has been enacted and strictly enforced. Employers have to keep records on how many prods and fenians work for them so that they can escape the charge of sectarianism. Road signs in some areas are bilingual in English and Irish. In other areas they appear in the ersatz vernacular now called Ulster Scots. Public bodies advertising for new recruits are encourage to place their advertisements in three languages.

The British tax payer picks up the tab.

Nobody's happy.

It is a truly ghastly place.

MarchDub

CDfm wrote: »

The British Labour Party were in power, surely, they had a point of view on democracy ,one man one vote and the other equality policies ?

There was a long experience in NI with trying to get Westminster attention on issues of democracy, Catholic rights etc only to repeatedly have it all referred back to the Stormont Parliament as an 'internal' NI issue.

Within the British Labour Party in the late 1940s a group formed - they called themselves something like Friends of Ireland - to try and get some of these issues addressed but it came to nothing.

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

There was a long experience in NI with trying to get Westminster attention on issues of democracy, Catholic rights etc only to repeatedly have it all referred back to the Stormont Parliament as an 'internal' NI issue.

Within the British Labour Party in the late 1940s a group formed - they called themselves something like Friends of Ireland - to try and get some of these issues addressed but it came to nothing.

I have vague recollections of that and how colonial they could be, didn't Michael Portillo have some connection or make some gaffe concerning it ?

And, what about the unions , is it fair to suggest that the unions were an intergral part of the problem ?

Does anyone know what their role was and whether any action was taken at national level in the UK or Ireland on it.

Richard

I think although you could argue that some of the Civil Rights tactics led to an overreaction by the authorities, their motives were ultimately good, and the emergence of SDLP led to peace many years later.

So ultimately, they were for the good. Interesting to see Sinn Fein jumping on the bandwagon many years later.

The Scientician

Many Unionists in the north thought from the beginning of NI that Catholics/Nationalists were a fifth column waiting to undermine the Northern state. The lacklustre activities of the IRA in their Border Campaign should have been a clear indicator that physical force republicanism didn't enjoy any great amount of support in the North and was, until the regenesis of the IRA in 1969, an irrelevance.

When NICRA et al got going many Unionists were convinced this was a spearhead of a new campaign to undermine them and bring about Catholic dominance and most of the powers that be wanted to give no concessions to the "mob". O'Neill was about the only one in a position of power to realise that change had to come, but unfortunately he seems to have been a watery enough character. He also alienated Catholics with some ill-conceived comments.

The marches sparked a violent reaction from Unionists/Protestants, similar to the Belfast pogroms of the '20s that came with the new state's inception. Even though the IRA was largely unarmed and out of touch, the Protestant mobs that stormed into Catholic areas in 1969 were convinced this was all part of a new IRA campaign to undermine NI. And ironically, in so doing, they created their worst nightmare and presaged the almost 30 years of bloody communal violence to come.