--Austin Currie, 20 August 1968

'Partition has never been the most vital issue in Ireland. The far greater problem is that everybody should have a decent standard of living.' This comment by the catholic secretary of the Northern Ireland Council of Social Services throws light not only upon the changing climate of minority opinion in the 1960s; it also highlights one of the central issues raised by the civil rights movement. The theme of securing rights within the existing framework or, alternatively, replacing it in order to achieve those rights, proved central to the development of many attitudes. For many leading figures amongst the minority, the rhetoric of anti-partition had long been undergoing a transformation, so that by 1968 it was possible to hear one representative stating that 'all I am asking for is that the same rights and privileges which are enjoyed by the people in Doncaster should be afforded to the people of Dungannon and Derry.' The demand now was for British rights for the citizens of a state that was, in constitutional terms, a part of the United Kingdom. Although this is not to say that all nationalists were happy with their lot, 'condemned to live under the Union Jack,' the emphasis of leading nationalist politicians had shifted such that they no longer exclusively sought an immediate end to the injustice that they believed the partition of Ireland to be. As the leader of the Nationalist Party put it:

I must at this moment make a choice of emphasis, for the fact remains that there is quite an early possibility of getting…civil rights, whereas, if we over-stress the partition claim at present, we might not bring unity any nearer and then an early casualty would be the civil rights movement

For socialists and republicans, the emphasis was again different: there was a tendency to view the cause of civil rights not so much as an end in itself, but as a means of uniting the deprived Irish working class, orange and green alike, in a crusade against the establishment and in favour of the eventual creation of a 32-county workers' republic along the lines set down by James Connolly. Nonetheless, an evident evolution in minority politics had occurred, bringing about a changed outlook that was central to the early development of a civil rights movement that so often couched it demands in terms of basic equality within the existing framework.

The perceived disparity between the words emanating from Stormont Castle and the actions of the cabinet towards addressing minority concerns was by 1968 leading to a growing sense of frustration in the catholic community, as well as among more progressive protestants and Labour-oriented elements, a feeling that O'Neillism was dealing in 'pious platitudes and damn all else.' For one commentator, 'fair words and the expression of pious hopes [do] not of themselves build or allocate houses on a just and fair basis.' For Westminster MP Gerry Fitt, 'apparent goodwill and polite, well-meaning gestures are not enough. The only lasting basis for communal goodwill rests upon social justice and welfare.'

While a reservoir of goodwill towards O'Neill did exists, it was tempered by a growing pessimism as calls for reform continued to be met either by 'pious words' or by measures that were considered 'too little, too late.' Progressive statements from Stormont, however sincere, were in the view of the Irish News 'not the kind of revelation likely to find acceptance among the Orange zealots who rule in places like Derry, Dungannon and Enniskillen.' Practices in the allocation of houses and employment grievances that had for years been the norm and an accepted, albeit resented, feature of life in Northern Ireland were becoming a source of increasing indignation in the O'Neill era, when minority politics, partly in response to the positive sounds being made by the proponents of O'Neillism, had itself contributed to raised expectations of a better deal within the existing system. When these expectations were disappointed, a pool of resentment at the government's perceived failure to act on its promises began to grow, resentment that made possible the phenomenon of a wider civil rights movement of the kind that developed as 1968 progressed.

Prior to the summer of 1968, civil rights activists had confined themselves largely to a campaign of exposing what were represented as the facts of Unionist misrule through statistical presentations and parliamentary lobbying. The failure of these methods to achieve redress bred a sense of futility that prompted a significant departure from convention, a new tendency epitomised most memorably by Austin Currie's squatting at a house in Caledon in June 1968. This incident, as Currie intended it would, focused public attention on the issue of fair housing allocation. One commentator summed up the views of many catholics in arguing that 'where all other fair means have failed it is both correct and courageous to protest by all means, even squatting, to highlight injustice.' Another manifestation of changing attitudes was to be gleaned from the activity of the left-wing Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC) which, disillusioned with 'the failure of conventional political activity and conventional political operatives to achieve any amelioration of the housing situation has left those, who are willing to fight for change, no option but to present a frontal challenge to the authorities,' was prepared also to take direct action. Shortly after the Caledon incident, the group blocked a main thoroughfare with a caravan in protest at Derry corporation's failure to house a needy family. Radicals who helped organise the protest did not share with Currie a set of common aspirations; nonetheless, their sense of frustration at the failure of the system to address their concerns were real enough. The civil rights movement, though never united in its ultimate aims, could draw on this underlying sense of bitter injustice to attract popular support. Although large-scale civil disobedience was not yet on the cards, the widespread spirit of resentment that clearly existed made it possible even for the previously highly cautious Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) to agree to Currie's proposition of a civil rights march in protest at housing allocation practices in Dungannon.

One commentator made clear the attractions of this new departure in asserting that 'it is…possibly true that the ordinary man in the street can only make his voice heard, can only really feel involved, when with his peers he engages in protests.' This new approach was not without its dangers, given the existence of mutual communal suspicions in Northern Ireland; a key therefore to the success of the civil rights drive, in the stated view of its leading lights, was that it be perceived not as a new manifestation of the familiar antagonisms, but as an all-embracing movement 'concern[ing] itself with citizens' rights, not their politics.' The NICRA leadership asserted that it was not 'some sort of nationalist splinter group,' and that with its demands granted, 'the Civil Rights Association [would] go out of business.' Although this opinion may not be considered universally representative of the views of supporters of the civil rights cause, it is nonetheless one that was commonly reflected in the statements and speeches of the period. A member of the student People's Democracy (PD) took Unionists to task for their assumption that behind the group lay the hand of anti-partition: 'I attended all the preparatory meetings of the People's Democracy and soon discovered that almost everyone was doing their utmost to avoid political or sectarian [identification].' Another member of the group stressed his indignation at the re-routing of one of its marches, arguing that 'as a protestant and a practising one at that, I strongly resent being forced to express my support for fundamental human rights in a catholic area.' Fundamental human rights were seen by exponents of this strand of pro-civil rights opinion as the true issue; the achievement of these rights need have nothing to do with the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, for as John Hume, vice-chairman of the Derry Citizens' Action Committee (DCAC) argued in seeking to allay Unionist fears, 'we are seeking fair play for all within the existing system.' Currie contended that an emphasis on the plight of the minority community in Northern Ireland was inevitable: 'Currie…said the majority of civil rights workers were catholic, which was natural, since there was more discrimination against catholics. But one reason why the Unionist Party was afraid of the movement was that protestants were involved in it.' Radical elements also rejected what they considered the anachronistic identification of religion with politics; for them, the question of civil rights was 'not a religious issue but rather a class issue [necessitating]…unity of all religions against social injustice in all sections of the community.' The working class, catholic and protestant alike, must recognise 'the basic truth that our problems are those of class not creed.' Republicans too were anxious to deny Unionist claims that the civil rights movement was an elaborate plot maintained and manipulated behind the scenes by their organisations. The civil rights movement, while containing a number of disparate strands of thought, evidently perceived the danger of being labelled a sectional movement.

If the flood of newspaper correspondence, political accusations and rebuttals, and increased participation in marches and counter-demonstrations that followed the developments of 5 October in Derry are to be trusted as a rough and ready measurement of public opinion, it is clear that it was the events of this day, more than any other during the period in question, that gave to the civil rights movement amomentum, grounded firmly in moral indignation and popular outrage at police conduct, that it had previously lacked. While this was not an indication of a new-found unity within the movement, it was clear that popular anger carried with it the risk that 'the position of the moderate is continually being eroded by the refusal of those in power to make meaningful concessions and this stubbornness only strengthens the extremists of both orange and green and breeds discord for the future.' The words of one commentator showed that this fear was far from groundless: 'I regret to say that much more pressure is needed on the government before they change their ways and who can deny that the only voice that is listened to is the roar from the streets?' The lesson to be learned from a comment such as this was that 'the Orange-Unionist power clique is not prepared to move…unless it is pushed,' and it was a recognition of the potential consequences of this type of collision between an irresistible force and an immovable object that undoubtedly led Derry Nationalist councillor James Hegarty to warn that

anger is growing daily, and anyone who thinks that "some day" is soon enough to face up to the political repercussions for the Unionist Party of a revision of the wards, falls far short of appreciating the explosive potential of the present position.

Despite this clear understanding of the potential for a radicalisation of the situation, even the more conservative of observers supportive of the civil rights case were of the opinion that a simple halt to marches of the kind requested by O'Neill, so that government might begin to implement reforms and restore normality, was unrealistic in an atmosphere of ever-growing tensions and expectations. Without an immediate and substantial reform package, it was felt that Stormont could not be trusted to keep its word were pressure from the streets to cease. Civil rights protests were designed to achieve what normal parliamentary procedure had not, and for Unionists to call for a halt to a strategy that was doing more to attract attention to the situation than any number of petitions or statistical presentations was seen as evidence that the movement was succeeding, and that entrenched interests were determined to resist change. Though he perhaps chose to express the idea more stridently than most, it was not McCann alone, or indeed merely the radical element within the civil rights movement, who believed that 'a few derisory sops - like the abolition of company votes or the appointment of a so-called "parliamentary commissioner"' would not now suffice in meeting civil rights demands. Although there was certainly a considerable measure of truth in Cardinal Conway's assertion that 'the immediate causes of these events are social. They grow out of the frustration of ordinary people who want houses and a fair chance of jobs and equitable representation,' the movement's growing momentum and the large-scale publicity it continued to attract, meant that it was not at all surprising to hear calls for assent to nothing less than full political equality. As one correspondent argued, 'what is needed now is not a servile acceptance of these Unionists['] handouts but a full acceptance by the government of all our demands.' The response of the Irish News to the reforms presented by the Stormont government on 22 November is worth quoting at length; it bears testimony to the existence of a widespread conviction that 'too little and too late' was an unacceptable acquiescence in continued injustice, and much too unsatisfactory an offer to make worthwhile an exchange of the civil rights movement's trump card of mass support and media publicity for less than its demands:

too little and too late…is a verdict which, history teaches us, has had to be passed time and time again upon the concessions finally and reluctantly wrung from autocratic regimes or the entrenched upholders of privilege when they felt that they could no longer withstand the pressure of forces outside their control…Had they [the proposals] been issued in the first year of Mr O'Neill's premiership, when we were all riding high on hopes inspired by his ecumenical addresses…they might have been taken at their face value. But even then they would never have been described as "sweeping." There surely can be nothing sweeping about a programme of political reform which does not call for the implementation of the principle of one-man-one-vote, the basis of every normal democratic system…We want more, and we want it now. We want full democracy for everyone - and not in the seventies or eighties.

Although there were many who were prepared to argue, along with McAteer, that half a loaf was better than none at all, few civil rights supporters were willing to welcome the reform package without considerable reservation. The Unionist Party, finally moving on the issue of reform, was not moving fast enough for the majority of civil rights supporters. A degree of forward momentum having been attained, it was possibly unrealistic to expect the movement to stop short of the realisation of its full demands, central to which were the principles of one-person-one-vote at local authority elections, and a revision of ward boundaries to ensure equitable representation for all sections of the community.

The response of the radical left to the reforms was also one of dissatisfaction, but it must be understood separately, in the context of the approach of this section of opinion to the overall issue of civil rights. As implied briefly above, radicals sought not the reform of existing institutions, the existence of which was deemed contrary to the interests of the working class; rather, their aim was the creation of a society founded upon unity between workers sharing a common socio-economic bond. The sterile sectarian divisions induced by the politics of the 'orange and green Tories' provided no basis on which a unity of working people could be built. The DHAC, for example, felt that the government wished 'to deny working class people full employment and decent housing while carefully fostering the harmful religious divisions in our society.' Not only the government however, but 'the whole sectarian set-up' must be opposed. Nationalists, by acquiescing in sectarian divisions, were serving only to perpetuate the anachronistic animosities between protestant and catholic workers. Protestant landlords, for example, were not alone in demanding exorbitant rents of their tenants. As the Derry Labour Party put it on the eve of the 5 October march, 'the landlord class [has] managed to blinker the public conscience, because every issue [is] seen in sectarian terms, and because the so-called opposition guides all expressions of discontent along sterile "constitutional" lines, where over-emotional ranting passes for militancy.' For the left, the answer to Northern Ireland's problems was emphatically not 'an alliance between Unionist ascendants and castle catholics,' which would simply mean the admittance of well-off members of the minority to the ruling 'junta'; rather workers must be brought to realise their common interests and the protestant working class must be disabused of the myth that it somehow occupied a privileged position under Unionist rule. For radicals on the left of politics, the civil rights movement provided an ideal vehicle for the realisation of this goal, involving mass agitation over the issue of political, social and economic justice. Mass-participation was seen as vital, in that it had the power to awaken in ordinary, often apathetic people an awareness of the exploitative nature of the system, and to forge from the common interest thus uncovered a consciousness of the need to unseat the privileged class. By November, Eamon McCann was already judging that the greatest virtue of the civil rights movement to date had been 'its success in involving thousands of ordinary people in significant political events, and…taking the struggle outside normal constitutional channels, thereby short-circuiting the political process.' Unlike Hume or Nationalist leader Eddie McAteer, McCann and like thinkers believed that the system, incapable of reform, must be replaced. From this position, it was only natural to draw the inference that

diversion of the struggle back into the reformist ruts of parliamentary manœuvre and silly shuffling between official and unofficial opposition - as if it mattered - will hand the initiative back to those whose failures created the need for the movement in the first place. I would say, therefore, that we need a Housing Action Committee rather than questions in the house.

It must be reiterated at this point that the government reforms were deemed unsatisfactory even by the most cautious of civil rights activists; where the outlook of the left differed from more conservative elements was not in its determination to continue with the campaign, but in its assessment of what this continuation was designed to achieve. In its approach, it had much in common with a significant section of the republican movement. The emphasis of late 1960s republicanism had shifted significantly away from the physical force tradition and towards involvement in the politics of working class unity against oppressors, whether north or south of the border. The immediate aim of the republican movement was to maximise the impact of the civil rights message upon all Irish people in the hope of uniting them. As a correspondent in the Irish News candidly pointed out, 'republicans are actively engaged in tackling the problems confronting the citizens of a fascist state,' being involved with such organisations as 'housing action committees and tenants' associations.' The movement's 'interest in securing equal rights for all is illustrated by the fact that it has more representatives than any other body on the present committee of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.' Republicans were however careful to deny any special role or undue influence within the movement, arguing that Unionist scaremongering to the contrary was a ploy aimed at stifling the 'growing awareness by people of all creeds and political persuasions that there is a denial of basic civil rights in Northern Ireland.'

Whatever the obvious disparity in aims and diversity in emphasis between the various strands of opinion that took an active part in the civil rights campaign, dissatisfaction with the 'half a loaf' offered by Stormont on 22 November 1968 was widespread and genuine, crossing the ideological boundaries between conservative and radical: the fact that a month-long moratorium on marches was called following O'Neill's appeal to the people is no indication that such a move was a foregone conclusion. The indignant reaction of civil rights groups to the failure of the government to grant one-man-one-vote was one sign of the growing determination on the part of a variety of interests to accept nothing less than their full demands. Currie's reception at an Armagh demonstration where, despite his respected status as a civil rights campaigner, he was told by hecklers to 'go home' when he called for the peaceful dispersal of marchers prevented by loyalists from traversing their planned route, provided one small but eloquent illustration of the deepening sense of popular anger, and demonstrated clearly the limits of the control that the middle class leadership could exercise over events that it organised. Indeed, the intervention of stewards much more than calls from the platform was held by some observers to have been the key to the maintenance of order both in Armagh and on an earlier DCAC march in Derry. It was becoming increasingly evident that marches on the streets of Northern Ireland carried with them a considerable element of danger. Their symbolic communal significance, and the vehemence of some of the opposition that they aroused, added to the situation an element of unpredictable volatility that left a significant section of opinion profoundly concerned about the future course of events. As these early warning signs indicated, the middle class civil rights leadership could not always be relied upon to exert that level of moral authority necessary to enable it to channel the undoubted grass-roots anger of supporters fired by a sense of burning injustice into a continued campaign of non-confrontational protest.

I more than welcome discussion of any kind on these or related topics, and anyone who writes will be guaranteed a reply. Whatever comments, ideas or questions you may have, don't hesitate to e-mail me