Irish History

Seeds Of The Modern Conflict

Discrimination in the north

Discrimination in employment and housing has been used strategically on a large scale by unionists against the non-unionist population to ensure that the minority never thrives or rises in relative numbers. Forced immigration and chronic poverty were the primary tools of unionist oppression.

Sir Basil Brooke, Stormont Minister for Agriculture and later prime minister, made a policy statement in 1933: "I can speak freely on this subject as I have not a Roman Catholic about my own place. I appreciate the great difficulty experienced by some in procuring suitable Protestant labour but I would point out that Roman Catholics are endeavouring to get in everywhere. I appeal to loyalists, therefore, whenever possible, to employ good Protestant lads and lassies."

In 1948, E.C. Ferguson, MP for Enniskillen, stated: "The nationalist majority in County Fermanagh, notwithstanding the reduction of 336 in the year, stands at 3,604. I would ask the meeting to authorize their executive to take whatever steps, however drastic, to liquidate this nationalist majority." Figures taken from the Fermanagh County Council pay sheets in April 1969 show that in this county with a Roman Catholic majority, only 32 Catholics were employed in a force of 370 workers. In 1971, there were 74 school busmen employed by Fermanagh Education Committee -- only 3 were Catholics.

In 1934, Lord Craigavon expressed the unionist viewpoint: "We are a Protestant parliament and a Protestant state. I am an Orangeman first and a member of this parliament afterwards."

Between 1945 and 1970, 1,589 local authority houses were built, only 35% went to members of the Catholic majority. Ghetto housing schemes were built all over the occupied six counties. A unionist council member declared: "We are not going to build houses in the South Ward and cut a rod to beat ourselves later on. We are going to see that the right people are put into these houses, and we are not making any apologies for it."

Civil Rights

Organized discontent began to emerge in the late 1960s leading to the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. Their moderate demands were:

• one person one vote
• an end to the gerrymandered local government boundaries
• an end to discrimination in the allocation of housing
• an end to discrimination in employment
• the repeal of the Special Powers Act

These demands were viewed by the Unionist majority as a threat to their privileged position. However, the violent reaction of the state shocked the world as television cameras relayed scenes of unprovoked attacks on civil rights marches and demonstrations. As widespread political unrest spread the British government saw its position being compromised and on August 14th, 1969, British soldiers were deployed in Belfast and Derry. Within a relatively short period came the introduction of curfews in nationalist areas, internment without trial and the murder of 14 unarmed civilians in Derry on Bloody Sunday in 1972. Within weeks of this massacre the British government abolished its local assembly, Stormont, and resumed direct rule.

Government by Repression

Since its creation 74 years ago, the Six County statelet has been in constant crisis. Its survival has always been dependent on repressive legislation, coercion and discrimination with human rights abuses long accepted as a fact of life.

Emergency legislation renewed last year includes widespread powers of arrest and detention. In the last 26 years over 60,000 people have been arrested and held for a period of up to seven days in British interrogation centers such as the one in Castlereagh where many were subjected to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. The British government has been found guilty of human rights abuses by the European Court of Human Rights on numerous occasions.

Since 1969 British forces have killed 357 people in the Six Counties with 294 killed by the British Army and 53 by the RUC. Almost 200 of those killed were civilians. With a handful of exceptions members of the British forces have received immunity for these murders. This is in stark contrast to the cruel sentences given to members of the nationalist community.

In addition to this oppression, nationalists have suffered from attacks from loyalist murder gangs. Over 900 people (almost 90% nationalist) have been assassinated by loyalist paramilitaries, many of these killings carried out in collusion with members of the British army and RUC.

The Civil Rights Movement

In 1967, a broadly based, non-political and non-sectarian civil rights movement composed of all shades of non-unionist opinion and of all religious denominations was formed in the six-counties. By peaceful protest demonstrations it demanded such reforms as one vote for each citizen [amazingly not the case in the north], equal opportunity housing and employment and the abolition of the abusive, police-state Special Powers Act. Most who supported the civil rights reforms were not interested in a free and united Ireland, but merely wanted justice within the British, partitionist system.

On October 1968, a peaceful civil rights march was brutally attacked by the RUC on the instructions of William Craig, Stormont Home Affairs Minister. A peaceful students march in January of 1969 from Belfast to Derry was attacked in an organized fashion by unionists and was later joined by the RUC in an vicious attack on the nationalist Bogside area of Derry.

Pro-British violence [both official and unofficial] culminated in a brutal attack on the Bogside on August 12 through the 14th, 1969, and an invasion of the nationalist areas of Belfast and other centers on August 13th - 15th. In the ensuing "pogrom", 500 houses were burned to the ground, 1,500 people forced from their homes, and nine people murdered. Realizing that Stormont rule had broken down, Westminster ordered British troops into action to save the system. A reform program was promised. The gerrymandered Derry Corporation was abolished and replaced by an undemocratic commission. Local government reform was promised but never implemented. The infamous Ulster Special Constabulary ["B Specials"] was disbanded but replaced by the Ulster Defense Regiment of the British army. Ex-members of the B Specials reorganized as gun clubs and were allowed to hold arms. By 1971, there were 102,000 licensed firearms in the six-counties, the vast majority in the hands of former members of the sectarian B-Specials. No change was made in t he Special Powers Act.

Internment

Following a change of government in Westminster, the British army launched a punitive military action against the people of the Lower Falls area of Belfast on 3rd, 4th and 5th of July, 1970. An illegal curfew was imposed and four innocent men were shoot dead by British troops. From July 4th onwards, all confidence in the British army as "peace keepers" evaporated. The troops were seen as the agents of the sectarian Stormont regime.

Between July 1970 and July 1972, the British army, on their own or supporting armed loyalist gangs, made brutal attacks on nationalist areas, shooting innocent nationalist civilians. Defense of the nationalist areas was then organized by the IRA, which also took retaliatory action against the British army. Sinn Fein organized the people and undertook a program of political action seeking nothing less than a united, independent republic. It was now obvious that the six-county statelet was totally unreformable. Only in a free nation could full civil rights be guaranteed.

When the British army brutally murdered two unarmed civilians in Derry in July, 1971, opposition members withdrew from the Stormont parliament. On August 7th, another civilian was murdered by the British army in Belfast. On August 9th, almost 300 men were arrested in dawn swoops and interned under the Special Powers Act. Not one unionist extremist was interned. Word soon got out of the internment camps that the men were being routinely mistreated and tortured. Sectarian attacks continued, supported by the British army.

The nationalist community reacted strongly. A widespread and effective campaign of civil disobedience began. A wave of anti-British feeling swept Ireland, North and South, as 8,000 refugees fled the pro-British terror and sought refuge in the South. The IRA took strong action and guerrilla warfare on a scale exceeding even that of 1919-21 developed. Irish people throughout the world organized and collected funds to make republican campaign the final phase in Ireland's 800 year-long struggle for freedom.

In 1970, Irish Northern Aid was founded in America to support the families of the internees and refugees burned out of their homes.