A MEETING TO MARK THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NORTHERN IRELAND CIVIL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION IN THE LINEN HALL LIBRARY, 17 DONEGALL SQUARE NORTH, BELFAST – SATURDAY 8TH APRIL AT 1.30 p.m.
SPEAKERS: ANTHONY COUGHLAN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR EMERITUS TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLINKEVIN MCCORRY FORMER ORGANISER NICRA
NICRA was unique as a political movement in the Northern Ireland experience. It was not a political party, indeed all shades of Northern political opinion were represented on its first Executive – Liberal, Labour, Nationalist, Republican, Communist and Trade Unionist. A young Unionist was co-opted at its formal launch on 9th April.
The Cameron Commission described it as a “novel phenomenon”; British rights for British citizens were its focus. This was a demand for equal treatment for Nationalists and Unionists within the existing constitution.
Successive Governments in London had been happy since the 1920s to ignore the abuses of the Unionist majority-rule regime in what some called Westminster’s Northern Ireland “political slum” until NICRA-sponsored marches brought these practices to world attention
Northern Premier Terence O’Neill was forced to concede in principle all of NICRA’s demands, although it would take years for some of them to work through and there was no attempt to make a comprehensive gesture to remove once and for all the grievances that brought people onto the streets.
But by 1971 the Civil Rights Movement was effectively side-lined. British, Irish and international public opinion which had been earlier behind the non-violent civil rights campaign now saw the Northern problem as one of “containing IRA violence” rather than establishing a regime of equality.
The political framework established by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement is in some ways a return to the values of the Civil Rights Movement. But can it lead to a coming-together of the two Northern communities on the basis of the real equality and make possible the political and social progress which was the aspiration of those who set up NICRA fifty years ago?
Only time will tell!
This event is organised by the Desmond Greaves Annual School. Now in its 29th year, the School provides a forum for political discussion. The 2017 School will held on 8th, 9th and 10th September in the Ireland Institute, Pearse Street, Dublin. Desmond Greaves was a Labour historian and activist. He influenced some of those who established NICRA.
Jude, the Civil Rights Movement in Derry lost its cutting edge when the Stormont Election happened in 1969. Hume, Cooper and others were seen by Nationalists as the Covil Rights people in parliament. The CRA took the people on to the streets but offered no political vision; that vacuum was never filled until others decided that armed revolution was the single solution. In turn, political action was returned to by Sinn Fein and sections of Unionism.