Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association

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"NICRA" redirects here. For other uses, see NICRA (disambiguation).

The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (Irish: Cumann Chearta Sibhialta Thuaisceart Éireann) was an organisation which campaigned for civil rights in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s.[1] although not formed in Belfast until 29 January 1967,[2] and initially including Unionist politicians, with Young Unionist Robin Cole taking a position on the executive committee.[3] the nucleus of the organisation lay in a meeting in Maghera in August 1966 between the Wolfe Tone Societies and the IRA.[4] The organisation was ostensibly created to campaign for social justice on issues such as discrimination against Roman Catholics in employment and housing, the Gerrymandering of electoral boundaries, the rights of Irish Travellers, and nuclear disarmament, however the hope of the IRA was that there would be a campaign of civil disturbance which would unseat the unionist government in Belfast.[5][6]

Origins

Since Northern Ireland's creation, the Roman Catholic minority community had suffered from discrimination under the unionist and wholly Protestant government.[7][8][9] While some historians regard the ethos of the Northern state as unashamedly and unambiguously sectarian,[10] there are some who argue that discrimination was never as calculated as republicans maintained nor as fictional as unionists claimed.[11] The police in particular were demonised by republicans as being in support of the Protestant and Unionist majority.[12]

The civil rights campaign which began in the mid-1960s attempted to achieve reform by publicising, documenting, and lobbying for an end to abuses in areas such as housing, unfair electoral procedures, discrimination in employment and the Special Powers Act.[13]

The idea of a greater civil rights campaign was pursued by the Dublin Wolf Tone Society. [14] The concept had been mooted previously by C. Desmond Greaves when a member of the Connolly Association and was seen as "the way to undermine Ulster unionism". [15] At a meeting which took place in Maghera over 13-14 August 1966, attended by all the Wolfe Tone Societies and the IRA's chief of staff, Cathal Goulding it was proposed that a civil rights campaign be started. From this meeting another was arranged in Belfast and on 29 January 1967 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was formed. [16] The thirteen man committee which was formed included Fred Heatley and Jack Bennett from the Wolfe Tone Societies and Laim McMillan of the IRA. [17]

For a time NICRA existed in parallel to other civil rights groups in Northern Ireland such as the Northern Ireland Council for Civil Liberties but the latter "disappeared from view" leaving NICRA to assume its role as umbrella organisation for the smaller civil rights organisations in the province. [18] The concept was to "Demand more than may be demanded by the compromising elements that exist among the Catholic leadership. Seek to associate as wide a section of the community as possible with these demands, in particular the well-intentioned people in the Protestant population and the trade union movement."[18]

NICRA published five aims:[18]

1. To defend the basic freedoms of all citizens. 2. To protect the rights of the individual. 3. To highlight all possible abuses of power. 4. To demand guarantees for freedom of speech, assembly and association. 5. To inform the public of their lawful rights.

It had six main demands:

  • "one man, one vote" which would allow all people over the age of 18 to vote in local council elections and remove the multiple votes held by business owners - known as the "business vote".
  • an end to gerrymandering electoral wards to produce an artificial unionist majority.
  • prevention of discrimination in the allocation of government jobs
  • prevention of discrimination in the allocation of council housing
  • the removal of the Special Powers Act
  • the disbandment of the Ulster Special Constabulary (B Specials)

It was seen as essential that: the civil rights movement include all elements that are deprived, not just republicans, and that unity in action within the civil rights movement be developed towards unity of political objectives to be won, and that ultimately (but not necessarily immediately) the political objective agreed by the organised radical groups be seen within the framework of a movement towards the achievement of a 32-county democratic republic.[18]

In a conscious imitation of tactics used by the American Civil Rights Movement,[19] and modelled somewhat on the National Council for Civil Liberties, the new organisation held marches, pickets, sit-ins and protests to pressure the Government of Northern Ireland to grant these demands. Internationally, given the widespread concern in the late 1960s with civil and minority rights, NICRA secured much wider international and internal support than traditional nationalist protest.[20]

Allegations against NICRA

The Northern Ireland government accused NICRA of being a front for Republican and communist ideologies.[21] After the failure of the IRA's Border Campaign, some of its left-wing elements had become involved in organisations such as NICRA, Trade Unions and the Northern Ireland Labour Party.[2]

The radical views of individuals within NICRA were highlighted by a commission of inquiry set up by the British Government following the spread of civil unrest in 1969. The report by a Scottish judge, Lord Cameron stated, "certain at least of those who were prominent in the Association had objects far beyond the 'reformist' character of the majority of Civil Rights Association demands, and undoubtedly regarded the Association as a stalking-horse for achievement of other and more radical and in some cases revolutionary objects, in particular abolition of the border, unification of Ireland outside the United Kingdom and the setting up of an all-Ireland Workers' Socialist Republic."[22]

First civil rights march

On 27 April 1968, NICRA held a rally to protest at the banning of a republican Easter parade. [23]

On 24 August 1968 the Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ), NICRA, and other groups, held the first civil rights march in Northern Ireland from Coalisland to Dungannon, in County Tyrone. Loyalists organised a counter demonstration in an effort to get the march banned and in fact the rally was officially banned. Despite this the march took place and passed off without incident. The publicity surrounding the march encouraged other protesting groups to form branches of NICRA.[24]

Derry march

In September 1968, NICRA organised a march to be held in Derry on 5 October 1968. On 1 October, a Protestant fraternal organisation, the Apprentice Boys of Derry, announced their intention to march the same route on the same day and time.[25] William Craig, the Northern Ireland Home Affairs Minister, chose to ban the civil rights march.[25]

NICRA defied the ban. The march was stopped by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) however before it had properly begun.http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/derry/chron.htm The marchers had proposed to walk from Duke Street in the Waterside area of Derry to the Diamond in the centre of the City. Present at the march were three British Labour Party Members of Parliament (MP), Gerry Fitt, then Republican Labour MP, several Stormont MPs, and members of the media including a television crew from RTE. There were different estimates of the number of people taking part in the march. Eamonn McCann (one of the organisers of the march) estimated that about 400 people lined up on the street with a further 200 watching from the pavements.[26] The RUC broke-up the march by baton-charging the crowd and leaving many people injured including a number of MPs. The incidents were filmed and later there was world-wide television coverage. The incidents in Derry had a profound effect on many people around the world but particularly on the Catholic population of Northern Ireland. Immediately after the march there were two days of serious rioting in Derry between the Catholic residents of the city and the RUC.[27]

Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O'Neill made his 'Ulster at the crossroads' speech on television on 9 December, appealing for calm. As a result of the announcement of various reforms, NICRA declared a halt to marches until 11 January 1969, while People's Democracy disagreed with this stance.[28]

1969 riots

Main articles: Battle of the Bogside and 1969 Northern Ireland riots

Events escalated until August 1969, when an Apprentice Boys of Derry march was attacked after trying to march through the nationalist Bogside area of Derry. The RUC intervened, and a three-day riot ensued between the RUC and the Bogside residents (allied under the Derry Citizens' Defence Association banner). Rioting spread throughout Northern Ireland, where at least seven were killed, and hundreds wounded. Thousands of Catholics were driven from their homes by Loyalists. These events were often seen as the start of the Troubles.

In a subsequent official inquiry, Lord Scarman concluded, "We are satisfied that the spread of the disturbances [in Derry in August 1969] owed much to a deliberate decision of some minority groups to relieve police pressure on the rioters in Londonderry. Amongst these groups must be included NICRA, whose executive decided to organise demonstrators in the Province so as to prevent reinforcement of the police in Londonderry."[29]

Bloody Sunday

Main article: Bloody Sunday (1972)

The British government introduced internment on 9 August 1971. The British Army in co-operation with the RUC, but acting on out of interned hundreds of men and women. This eventually rose to several thousand. Most of those interned were innocent of involvement with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). The IRA, having been tipped off about the internment, either went underground or fled across the border. Many of those imprisoned were civil rights activists.

By this stage support for NICRA began to wane. However NICRA organized marches against internment. In Derry on 30 January 1972, fourteen unarmed demonstrators were shot and killed by British troops during an anti-internment march. This became known as Bloody Sunday. The army later claimed it had come under fire. No guns were uncovered. Most of the victims were shot in the back, indicating they were running away. The British government's Saville Report published 2010 cleared the names of the protestors as innocent victims and blamed a "breakdown in the chain of command" for the deaths.

People associated with NICRA

Malachy McGurran Chairman, Frank Gogarty, Ivan Barr, Denis Haughey, Michael Farrell, Vice Chair, Vincent MacDowell vice chair. Patrons of NICRA included Kader Asmal, Anthony Coughlan, Bernadette Devlin, and John Hume. The first chair of NICRA was Betty Sinclair (Communist Party) from 1968-1969; other committee members included Paddy Devlin (NILP), Ivan Cooper, Fionnbarra Ó Dochartaigh, Robin Cole (Young Unionists), Kevin Agnew, Conn McCluskey, Jack Bennett, Madge Davison and Fred Heatley. NICRA's Official Secretary was Edwina Stewart, a Protestant who replaced Betty Sinclair in the executive in 1968.

Bibliography

  • English, Richard. Armed Struggle;– A History of the IRA, MacMillan, London 2003, ISBN 1-4050-0108-9

References

  1. ^ "Madge Davidson", Communist Party of Ireland
  2. ^ a b Bardon, Jonathan (1992). A History of Ulster. Belfast, UK: The Blackstaff Press. p. 651. ISBN 0-85640-476-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ Bardon, Jonathan (1992). A History of Ulster. Belfast, UK: The Blackstaff Press. p. 652. ISBN 0-85640-476-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ English p91
  5. ^ English p98
  6. ^ Bardon, Jonathan (1992). A History of Ulster. Belfast, UK: The Blackstaff Press. p. 655. ISBN 0-85640-476-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ Tonge, Jonathan (2006). Northern Ireland. Polity. pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-0-7456-3141-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  8. ^ Minahan, James B. (2000). One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups. Greenwood Press. p. 335. ISBN 978-0-313-30984-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  9. ^ Lydon, James (1998). The Making of Ireland: A History. Routledge. pp. 393–394. ISBN 978-0-415-01347-5. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  10. ^ Joseph Ruane & Jennifer Todd, The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland: Power, Conflict and Emancipation, Cambridge University Press (FP 1996) 2000, ISBN 0-521-56879-X
  11. ^ Senia Paseta (2003), Modern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction, p107. Oxford Paperbacks
  12. ^ Bew, Gibbon and Patterson, Northern Ireland: 1921/2001 Political Forces and Social Classes, p27
  13. ^ Ruane & Todd, Pg. 121-125
  14. ^ English p91
  15. ^ English p86
  16. ^ English p91
  17. ^ English p91
  18. ^ a b c d "CAIN: Events: Civil Rights: Bob Purdie (1990) The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association". Cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 2013-08-15.
  19. ^ Weiss, Ruth. Peace in Their Time: War and Peace in Ireland and Southern Africa. p. 34.
  20. ^ Ruane & Todd, pp126-127
  21. ^ Jarman, Neil: Material conflicts: parades and visual displays in Northern Ireland. Berg Publishers, 1997, p77. ISBN 1-85973-129-5
  22. ^ Lord Cameron, 'Disturbances in Northern Ireland: Report of the Commission appointed by the Governor of Northern Ireland' (Belfast, 1969)
  23. ^ "CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1968". Cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 2013-08-15.
  24. ^ "A Chronology of the Conflict - 1968". Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN). Retrieved 11 July 2009.
  25. ^ a b Martin Melaugh. "The Derry March - Chronology of Events Surrounding the March". CAIN. Retrieved 2008-02-16.
  26. ^ "CAIN: Derry March - Chronology of events". Cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 2013-08-15.
  27. ^ "CAIN: Derry March - Chronology of events". Cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 2013-08-15.
  28. ^ Bew, Paul (1993). "1968". Northern Ireland : A Chronology of the Troubles, 1968-1993. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan. p. 10. ISBN 0-7171-2081-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  29. ^ 'Violence and Civil Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969', Scarman Tribunal, April 1972

External links

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