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The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted 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.
Unionism in Ireland is a political tradition on the island that professes loyalty to the unifying Crown and constitution of the United Kingdom. Once the overwhelming sentiment of a then-ascendant minority Protestant population, in the decades following Catholic Emancipation (1829) it mobilised to oppose the restoration of an Irish parliament. Resurgent as "Ulster unionism", in the century since Partition (1921), its commitment has been to the retention within the United Kingdom of the six Ulster counties that constitute Northern Ireland. Within the framework of a peace settlement for Northern Ireland, since 1998 unionists have reconciled to sharing office with Irish nationalists in a devolved administration, while continuing to rely on the connection with Great Britain to secure their cultural and economic interests.
Terence Marne O'Neill, Baron O'Neill of the Maine, PC (NI), was the fourth prime minister of Northern Ireland and leader (1963–1969) of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). A moderate unionist, who sought to reconcile the sectarian divisions in Northern Ireland society, he was a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for the Bannside constituency from 1946 until his resignation in January 1970; his successor in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland was Ian Paisley, while control of the UUP also passed to more hard-line elements.
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 area, which included the mainly-Catholic Bogside and Creggan neighbourhoods, was first secured by community activists on 5 January 1969 following an incursion into the Bogside by RUC officers. Residents built barricades and carried clubs and similar arms to prevent the RUC from entering. Its name was taken from a sign painted on a gable wall in the Bogside which read, "You are now entering Free Derry". For six days the area was a no-go area, after which the residents took down the barricades and RUC patrols resumed. Tensions remained high over the following months.
The Ulster Constitution Defence Committee (UCDC) was established in Northern Ireland in April 1966. The UCDC was the governing body of the loyalist Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV). The UCDC coordinated parades, counter demonstrations, and paramilitary activities, in order to maintain the status quo of the government, lead a campaign against the reforms of Terence O'Neill, and stymie the civil rights movement.
The Battle of the Bogside was a very large communal riot that took place from 12 to 14 August 1969 in Derry, Northern Ireland. The fighting was between residents of the Bogside area, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) along with local unionists.
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) 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 in areas such as elections, discrimination in employment, in public housing and alleged abuses of the Special Powers Act. The genesis of the organisation lay in a meeting in Maghera in August 1966 between the Wolfe Tone Societies which was attended by Cathal Goulding, then chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
People's Democracy (PD) was a political organisation that supported the campaign for civil rights for Northern Ireland's Catholic minority but stated that they could be achieved only by the establishment of a socialist republic for all of Ireland. It demanded more radical reforms of the government of Northern Ireland than the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association from which it split
Ivan Averill Cooper was an Irish politician from Northern Ireland who was a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and a founding member of the SDLP. He is best known for leading an anti-internment march which developed into the Bloody Sunday massacre on 30 January 1972, in Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, after British soldiers opened fire on the crowd.
Eamonn McCann is a People Before Profit politician, journalist, political activist and councillor from Derry, Northern Ireland. In the 2016 Northern Ireland Assembly election, he was elected as an MLA for the Foyle constituency. He served for nearly nine months before losing his seat in 2017. In the 2019 election he was elected to Derry City and Strabane District Council, remaining in the position until his resignation for health reasons in March 2021.
The Dublin Housing Action Committee (DHAC) was a 1960s protest group formed in response to housing shortages in Dublin, Ireland's capital city. It quickly moved to direct action and successfully squatted buildings to oppose redevelopment plans.
During 12–16 August 1969, there was an outbreak of political and sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, which is often seen as the beginning of the almost thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising out of the civil rights campaign, which demanded an end to discrimination against Catholics and Irish nationalists. Civil rights marches had been repeatedly attacked by Ulster Protestant loyalists and also came into frequent conflict with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the overwhelmingly Protestant police force.
Events during the year 1968 in Northern Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Housing Executive is the public housing authority for Northern Ireland. It is Northern Ireland's largest social housing landlord, and the enforcing authority for those parts of housing orders that involve houses with multiple occupants, houses that are unfit, and housing conditions. The NIHA employed 2,865 persons as of 31 March, 2020.
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.
Claude Wilton was a politician, solicitor and civil rights campaigner from Northern Ireland.
Eamonn Melaugh is an Irish socialist, political campaigner and activist from Derry, Northern Ireland.
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.
Robert Martin McBirney QC, known as Martin McBirney, was a magistrate and politician from Northern Ireland who was assassinated.
Springtown Camp was a former United States military camp near Derry, Northern Ireland, that housed up to 400 Catholic families in the 1940s to 1960s in substandard housing rented by the local authority. The outcry over the Unionist-controlled city council's failure to re-house the tenants in proper buildings gave rise to some of the first Northern Irish civil rights protests of the 1960s.
References
- 1 2 DHAC 1968 & 1969 Archived 23 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine www.nicivilrights.org
- 1 2 "A Chronology of the Conflict - 1968". Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN). Archived from the original on 6 August 2011. Retrieved 11 July 2009.
- ↑ Wills, Clair (23 May 2019). "No Waverers Allowed". London Review of Books (41:10). Archived from the original on 29 May 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
