Battle of the Bogside | |||
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Part of the Troubles and the 1969 Northern Ireland riots | |||
Date | 12–14 August 1969 | ||
Location | Derry, Northern Ireland, UK 54°59′52″N7°19′38″W / 54.99778°N 7.32722°W | ||
Caused by | (see background) | ||
Methods | large-scale rioting | ||
Resulted in |
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Parties | |||
Lead figures | |||
Number | |||
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Casualties and losses | |||
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The Battle of the Bogside was a large three-day riot that took place from 12 to 14 August 1969 in Derry, Northern Ireland. Thousands of Catholic/Irish nationalist residents of the Bogside district, organised under the Derry Citizens' Defence Association, clashed with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and loyalists. [1] [2] It sparked widespread violence elsewhere in Northern Ireland, led to the deployment of British troops, and is often seen as the beginning of the thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles.
Violence broke out as the Protestant loyalist Apprentice Boys marched past the Catholic Bogside. The RUC drove back the Catholic crowd and pushed into the Bogside, followed by loyalists who attacked Catholic homes. [3] Thousands of Bogside residents beat back the RUC with a hail of stones and petrol bombs. [4] The besieged residents built barricades, set up first aid posts and petrol bomb workshops, and a radio transmitter broadcast messages calling for resistance. [4] The RUC fired CS gas into the Bogside – the first time it had been used by UK police. [4] Residents feared the Ulster Special Constabulary would be sent in and would massacre Catholic residents. [4]
The Irish Army set up field hospitals near the border and the Irish government called for a United Nations peacekeeping force to be sent to Derry. On 14 August, the British Army were deployed and the RUC were withdrawn. The British Army made no attempt to enter the Bogside, which became a no-go area called Free Derry. This situation continued until October 1969 when military police were allowed in.
Tensions had been building in Derry for over a year before the Battle of the Bogside. In part, this was due to long-standing grievances held by much of the city's population. The city had a majority Catholic and nationalist population. In 1961, for example, the population was 53,744, of which 36,049 was Catholic and 17,695 Protestant. [5] However, because of gerrymandering after the partition of Ireland, it had been ruled by the Ulster Unionist Party since 1925.
Unionists maintained political control of Derry by two means. Firstly, electoral wards were gerrymandered so as to give unionists a majority of elected representatives in the city. The Londonderry County Borough, which covered the city, had been won by nationalists in 1921. It was recovered by unionists, however, following re-drawing of electoral boundaries by the unionist government in the Northern Ireland Parliament. [6]
Secondly, only owners or tenants of a dwelling and their spouses were allowed to vote in local elections. [6] Nationalists argued that these practices were retained by unionists after their abolition in Great Britain in 1945 in order to reduce the anti-unionist vote. [6] [7] Figures show that, in Derry city, nationalists comprised 61.6% of parliamentary electors, but only 54.7% of local government electors. [8] There was also widespread discrimination in employment. [6]
As a result, although Catholics made up 60% of Derry's population in 1961, [9] due to the division of electoral wards, unionists had a majority of 12 seats to 8 on the city council. When there arose the possibility of nationalists gaining one of the wards, the boundaries were redrawn to maintain unionist control. [10] Control of the city council gave unionists control over the allocation of public housing, which they allocated in such a way as to keep the Catholic population in a limited number of wards. [5] This policy had the additional effect of creating a housing shortage for Catholics.
Another grievance, highlighted by the Cameron Commission's investigation into the riots of 1968, was the issue of perceived regional bias: Northern Ireland government decisions favoured the mainly Ulster Protestant east of Northern Ireland rather than the mainly Catholic west. [11] Examples of such controversial [6] decisions affecting Derry were the decision to close the anti-submarine training school in 1965 which added 600 to an unemployment figure already approaching 20%, the decision to site Northern Ireland's new town at Craigavon, and the siting of Northern Ireland's second university in the mainly unionist town of Coleraine rather than Derry, which had four times the population and was Northern Ireland's second biggest city. [12]
In March 1968, a handful of activists founded the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC), with the intention of forcing the government of Northern Ireland to change its housing policies. The group's founders were mostly local members of the Northern Ireland Labour Party, such as Eamonn McCann, and members of the James Connolly Republican Club (the Northern manifestation of Sinn Féin, which had been banned in Northern Ireland). The DHAC took direct action, such as blocking roads and attending local council meetings uninvited, in order to force them to house Catholic families who had been on the council housing waiting list for a long time. By the middle of 1968, this group had linked up with the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and were agitating for a broader programme of reform within Northern Ireland. [13]
On 5 October 1968, these activists organised a march through the centre of Derry. However, the demonstration was banned. When the marchers, including Members of Parliament Eddie McAteer and Ivan Cooper, defied this ban they were batoned by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). Gerry Fitt, the Republican Labour MP for West Belfast, brought three British Labour MPs to observe the march. Fitt took his place at the front of the march and was assaulted by RUC officers. TV pictures of Fitt, a Westminster MP, with bloody head and shirt were broadcast around the world. [14] The actions of the police were televised and caused widespread anger across Ireland, particularly among northern nationalists. The following day, 4,000 people demonstrated in solidarity with the marchers in Guildhall Square in the centre of Derry. This march passed off peacefully, as did another demonstration attended by up to 15,000 people on 16 November. However, these incidents proved to be the start of an escalating pattern of civil unrest that culminated in the events of August 1969. [15]
In January 1969, a march by the radical nationalist group People's Democracy was attacked by off-duty Ulster Special Constabulary (B-Specials) members and other Ulster loyalists during the Burntollet bridge incident, five miles outside Derry. [16] [17] [18] The RUC refused to protect the marchers. When the marchers (many of whom were injured) arrived in Derry on 5 January, fighting broke out between their supporters and the police. That night, police officers broke into homes in the Catholic Bogside area and assaulted several residents. An inquiry led by Lord Cameron concluded that, "a number of policemen were guilty of misconduct, which involved assault and battery, malicious damage to property...and the use of provocative sectarian and political slogans". [19] After this point, barricades were set up in the Bogside and vigilante patrols organised to keep the police out. It was at this point that the famous mural with the slogan "You are now entering Free Derry" was painted on the corner of Columbs Street by a local activist named John Casey.
On 19 April there were clashes between NICRA marchers, loyalists and the RUC in the Bogside area. Police officers entered the house of Samuel Devenny (42), a local Catholic who was not involved in the riot, and severely beat him with batons. His teenage daughters were also beaten in the attack. Devenny died of his injuries on 17 July [20] and he is sometimes referred to as the first victim of the Troubles. [20] Others consider John Patrick Scullion, who was killed 11 June 1966 by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), to have been the first victim of the conflict. [21]
On 12 July ("The Twelfth") there was further rioting in Derry, in nearby Dungiven, and in Belfast. The violence arose out of the yearly Orange Order marches commemorating the Battle of the Boyne. During the clashes in Dungiven, Catholic civilian Francis McCloskey (67) was beaten with batons by RUC officers and died of his injuries the following day. [20] Following these riots, Irish republicans in Derry set up the Derry Citizens Defence Association (DCDA) with the intention of preparing for future disturbances. The members of the DCDA were initially Republican Club (and possibly IRA) activists, but they were joined by many other young Labour left-wing activists and local people. [22] This group stated their aim as firstly to keep the peace, but if this failed, to organise the defence of the Bogside. To this end, they stockpiled materials for barricades and missiles, ahead of the Apprentice Boys of Derry march on 12 August, the Relief of Derry parade.
The annual Apprentice Boys parade on 12 August commemorates the relief of the Siege of Derry on 1 August O. S., a Protestant victory. The march was considered highly provocative by many Catholics. Derry activist Eamonn McCann wrote that the march "was regarded as a calculated insult to the Derry Catholics". [23]
Although the march did not pass through the Bogside, it passed near to it at the junction of Waterloo Place and William Street. It was here that the initial disturbance broke out. Initially, some loyalists had thrown pennies from the top of the walls at Catholics in the Bogside below, in return marbles were fired by slingshot. [24] As the parade passed the perimeter of the Bogside, Catholics hurled stones and nails, resulting in an intense confrontation. [24]
The RUC, who had suffered a barrage of missiles, then moved against the Catholic/nationalist rioters. [24] Whilst the police fought with the rioters at William Street, officers at the Rossville Street barricade encouraged Protestants slingshotting stones across the barricade at the Catholics. [1] The police then tried to alleviate the pressure they were under by dismantling the barricade and moving into the Bogside, [24] on foot and in armoured vehicles. [3] This created a gap through which Protestants also surged, [24] smashing the windows of Catholic homes. [3]
Nationalists lobbed stones and petrol bombs from the top of the high-rise Rossville Flats, halting the police advance, [24] and injuring 43 of the 59 officers who made the initial incursion. [25] When the advantage of this position was realised, the youths were kept supplied with stones and petrol bombs. Groups of loyalists and nationalists continued to throw stones and petrol bombs at each other. [24]
The actions of the Bogside residents were co-ordinated to some extent. The DCDA set up a headquarters in the house of Paddy Doherty in Westland Street and tried to supervise the making of petrol bombs and the positioning of barricades. Petrol bomb workshops and first aid posts were set up. [4] A radio transmitter, "Radio Free Derry", broadcast messages encouraging resistance and called on "every able-bodied man in Ireland who believes in freedom" to defend the Bogside. [4] Many local people, however, joined in the rioting on their own initiative and impromptu leaders also emerged, such as McCann, Bernadette Devlin and others.
The RUC were not well prepared for the riot. Their riot shields were too small and did not protect their whole bodies. Furthermore, their uniforms were not flame resistant and some officers were badly burned by petrol bombs. Moreover, there was no system in place to relieve officers, with the result that the same policemen had to serve in the rioting for three days without rest. The overstretched police also resorted to throwing stones back at the Bogsiders, and were helped by loyalists. [3]
Late on 12 August, police began flooding the area with CS gas, which caused a range of respiratory injuries among local people. A total of 1,091 canisters, each containing 12.5g of CS; and fourteen canisters containing 50g of CS, were fired into the densely-populated residential area. [26]
On 13 August, Jack Lynch, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the Republic of Ireland, made a televised speech about the events in Derry, saying "the Irish Government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse". He said he had "asked the British Government to see to it that police attacks on the people of Derry should cease immediately", and called for a United Nations peacekeeping force to be sent to Derry. Lynch also announced that the Irish Army was being sent to the border to set up field hospitals for those civilians injured in the fighting. [27] Some Bogsiders believed that Irish troops were about to be sent over the border to defend them. [28]
By 14 August, the rioting in the Bogside had reached a critical point. Almost the entire Bogside community had been mobilised by this point, many galvanised by false rumours that St Eugene's Cathedral had been attacked by loyalists. [3] The police were also beginning to use firearms. Two rioters were shot and wounded in Great James Street. The Ulster Special Constabulary (or B-Specials) were called up and sent to Derry. This was a quasi-military reserve police force, made up almost wholly of Protestants with no training in crowd control. Residents feared the B-Specials would be sent into the Bogside and would massacre Catholics. [29] After two days of almost continuous rioting, during which police were drafted in from all over Northern Ireland, the police were exhausted and were snatching sleep in doorways whenever the opportunity allowed.
On the afternoon of the 14th, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Chichester-Clark, took the unprecedented step of requesting the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, to deploy British troops to Derry. At about 5pm a company of the 1st Battalion, Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire (who had been on standby at HMS Sea Eagle) arrived and took over from the police. [3] They agreed not to breach the barricades or enter the Bogside. [3] This marked the first direct military intervention by the British government in Ireland since partition. The British troops were at first welcomed by the Bogside residents as a neutral force compared to the RUC and the B-Specials. Only a handful of radicals in the Bogside, notably Devlin, opposed their deployment. However, this good relationship did not last long as the Troubles escalated.
Over 1,000 people were injured in the rioting in Derry, but no one was killed. A total of 691 policemen were deployed in Derry during the riot, of whom only 255 were still in action at 12:30 on the 15th. Manpower then fluctuated for the rest of the afternoon: the numbers recorded are 318, 304, 374, 333, 285 and finally 327 at 5.30 pm. While some of the fluctuation in numbers can be put down to exhaustion rather than injury, these figures indicate that the police suffered at least 350 serious injuries. How many Bogsiders were injured is unclear, as many injuries were never reported. [30]
On 13 August, NICRA called for protests across Northern Ireland in support of the Bogside to draw police away from the fighting there. That night it issued a statement:
A war of genocide is about to flare across the North. The CRA demands that all Irishmen recognise their common interdependence and calls upon the Government and people of the Twenty-six Counties to act now to prevent a great national disaster. We urgently request that the Government take immediate action to have a United Nations peace-keeping force sent to Derry. [3]
Nationalists held protests at RUC stations in Belfast, Newry, Armagh, Dungannon, Coalisland and Dungiven. Some of these became violent. The worst violence was in Belfast, where nationalists clashed with both the police and with loyalists, who attacked Catholic districts. Scores of homes and businesses were burnt out, most of them owned by Catholics, and thousands of mostly Catholic families were driven from their homes. Some viewed this as an attempted pogrom against the Catholic minority. Seven people in Belfast were killed and hundreds wounded, five of them Catholic civilians shot by police. Another Catholic civilian was shot dead by B-Specials in Armagh. Both republican and loyalist paramilitaries were involved in the clashes. [31] [32] [33]
The documentary Battle of the Bogside , produced and directed by Vinny Cunningham and written by John Peto, won "Best Documentary" at the Irish Film and Television Awards in October 2004.
The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "irregular war" or "low-level war". The conflict began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) following the partition of Ireland. At its peak the force had around 8,500 officers, with a further 4,500 who were members of the RUC Reserve.
The Ulster Special Constabulary was a quasi-military reserve special constable police force in what would later become Northern Ireland. It was set up in October 1920, shortly before the partition of Ireland. The USC was an armed corps, organised partially on military lines and called out in times of emergency, such as war or insurgency. It performed this role most notably in the early 1920s during the Irish War of Independence and the 1956–1962 IRA Border Campaign.
The Holy Cross dispute occurred in 2001 and 2002 in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast, Northern Ireland. During the 30-year conflict known as the Troubles, Ardoyne had become segregated – Ulster Protestants and Irish Catholics lived in separate areas. This left Holy Cross, a Catholic primary school for girls, in the middle of a Protestant area. In June 2001—during the last week of school before the summer break—Protestant loyalists began picketing the school, claiming that Catholics were regularly attacking their homes and denying them access to facilities.
Free Derry was a self-declared autonomous Irish nationalist area of Derry, Northern Ireland that existed between 1969 and 1972 during the Troubles. It emerged during the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, which sought to end discrimination against the Irish Catholic/nationalist minority by the Protestant/unionist government. The civil rights movement highlighted the sectarianism and police brutality of the overwhelmingly Protestant police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).
The Ulster Protestant Volunteers was a loyalist and Reformed fundamentalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. They were active between 1966 and 1969 and closely linked to the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee (UCDC) and Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), established by Ian Paisley and Noel Doherty in 1966.
The Ulster Constitution Defence Committee (UCDC) was established in Northern Ireland in April 1966 as the governing body of the loyalist Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV). It coordinated parades, counter-demonstrations, and paramilitary activities to maintain the status quo of the government, led a campaign against the reforms of Terence O'Neill and stymied the civil rights movement.
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) (Irish: Cumann Cearta Sibhialta Thuaisceart Éireann) was an organisation that campaigned for civil rights in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in Belfast on 9 April 1967, the civil rights campaign attempted to achieve reform by publicising, documenting, and lobbying for an end to discrimination against Catholics in areas such as elections (which were subject to gerrymandering and property requirements), discrimination in employment, in public housing and abuses of the Special Powers Act.
Ulster loyalism is a strand of Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and oppose a united Ireland independent of the UK. Unlike other strands of unionism, loyalism has been described as an ethnic nationalism of Ulster Protestants and "a variation of British nationalism". Loyalists are often said to have a conditional loyalty to the British state so long as it defends their interests. They see themselves as loyal primarily to the Protestant British monarchy rather than to British governments and institutions, while Garret FitzGerald argued they are loyal to 'Ulster' over 'the Union'. A small minority of loyalists have called for an independent Ulster Protestant state, believing they cannot rely on British governments to support them. The term 'loyalism' is usually associated with paramilitarism.
This article recounts the violence and other effects related to The Troubles in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Much of it has been related to the Drumcree parade dispute.
Operation Banner was the operational name for the British Armed Forces' operation in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 2007, as part of the Troubles. It was the longest continuous deployment in British military history. The British Army was initially deployed, at the request of the unionist government of Northern Ireland, in response to the August 1969 riots. Its role was to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and to assert the authority of the British government in Northern Ireland. This involved counter-insurgency and supporting the police in carrying out internal security duties such as guarding key points, mounting checkpoints and patrols, carrying out raids and searches, riot control and bomb disposal. More than 300,000 soldiers served in Operation Banner. At the peak of the operation in the 1970s, about 21,000 British troops were deployed, most of them from Great Britain. As part of the operation, a new locally-recruited regiment was also formed: the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).
During 12–16 August 1969, there was an outbreak of political and sectarian violence throughout Northern Ireland, which is often seen as the beginning of the thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising out of the Northern Ireland civil rights campaign, which demanded an end to discrimination against Catholics and Irish nationalists. Civil rights marches had been attacked by Protestant loyalists, and protesters often clashed with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the overwhelmingly Protestant police force.
Events during the year 1986 in Northern Ireland.
The Drumcree conflict or Drumcree standoff is a dispute over yearly parades in the town of Portadown, Northern Ireland. The town is mainly Protestant and hosts numerous Protestant marches each summer, but has a significant Catholic minority. The Orange Order insists that it should be allowed to march its traditional route to and from Drumcree Church on the Sunday before the Twelfth of July. However, most of this route is through the mainly Catholic/Irish nationalist part of town. The residents, who see the march as sectarian, triumphalist and supremacist, have sought to ban it from their area.
The city of Derry, Northern Ireland, was severely affected by the Troubles. The conflict is widely considered to have begun in the city, with many regarding the Battle of the Bogside in 1969 as the beginning of the Troubles. The Bloody Sunday incident of 1972 occurred in Derry, in the Bogside area.
Burntollet Bridge was the setting for an attack on 4 January 1969 during the first stages of the Troubles of Northern Ireland. A People's Democracy march from Belfast to Derry was attacked by Ulster loyalists whilst passing through Burntollet.
The Battle of St Matthew's or Battle of Short Strand was a gun battle that took place on the night of 27–28 June 1970 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was fought between the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and Ulster loyalists in the area around St Matthew's Roman Catholic church. This lies at the edge of the Short Strand, a Catholic enclave in a mainly-Protestant part of the city. Violence had erupted there, and in other parts of Belfast, following marches by the Orange Order. The battle lasted about five hours and ended at dawn when loyalists withdrew. The British Army and police were deployed nearby but did not intervene. Three people were killed and at least 26 wounded in the fighting, while another three were killed in north Belfast.
From 6 to 11 July 1997 there were mass protests, fierce riots and gun battles in Irish nationalist districts of Northern Ireland. Irish nationalists/republicans, in some cases supported by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), attacked the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and British Army. The protests and violence were sparked by the decision to allow the Orange Order to march through a Catholic/nationalist neighbourhood of Portadown. Irish nationalists were outraged by the decision and by the RUC's aggressive treatment of those protesting against the march. There had been a bitter dispute over the march for many years.
The Northern Ireland civil rights movement dates to the early 1960s, when a number of initiatives emerged in Northern Ireland which challenged the inequality and discrimination against ethnic Irish Catholics that was perpetrated by the Ulster Protestant establishment. The Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ) was founded by Conn McCluskey and his wife, Patricia. Conn was a doctor, and Patricia was a social worker who had worked in Glasgow for a period, and who had a background in housing activism. Both were involved in the Homeless Citizens League, an organisation founded after Catholic women occupied disused social housing. The HCL evolved into the CSJ, focusing on lobbying, research and publicising discrimination. The campaign for Derry University was another mid-1960s campaign.
On 12 July 2001, major rioting and civil disorder broke out in Ardoyne, north Belfast, Northern Ireland. In some of the worst rioting in years, 113 police officers were injured in clashes which followed a July 12 parade. Police were attacked when trying clear the path for about 100 Orangemen returning from the parade to go along a main road passing the Catholic Ardoyne area.
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