They aimed to have equal rights and wanted to achieve this by having peaceful marches. I do not think that the civil rights marchers really believed that their marches would be non violent because they intended to march through Protestant areas which would evidently aggravate Protestants, and especially extremists like Ian Paisley.
Whenever Ian Paisley saw some peace arising, he stirred it up again. For example when Terrance O Neil shook hands with a man from the Republic of Ireland and when Protestant churches started talking to Catholic churches saying that they should have mixed churches.
The people opposed to the civil rights movement were the Protestants because they were loyalists i.e. wanted to be loyal to the Queen and stay apart of Britain whereas the Republicans (Catholics) wanted one Ireland and to get rid of the border.
The main Protestant that opposed the civil rights movement was Ian Paisley as he was an extremist, he had support from not only the government but the police aswell eventhough the police aswell eventhough the police force is meant to be impartial.
The police caused a lot of disturbance in 1968/9 by smashing Catholic house windows and by attacking marchers on the Burntollet march for no apparent reason.
William Craig was in my opinion also an extremist because he made accusations like, the civil rights marchers are just a front for the IRA.
Ian Paisley played a big part in the troubles because he was a strong believer in Christianity and therefore felt as though the Catholics were trying to over rule not only the Protestant government but the Protestant churches aswell. So for this reason he held counter demonstrations and made Catholics lives hell.
I believe that the civil rights marchers were wrong to march through protestant areas because they stirred up trouble and got nothing from it. I understand that by holding marches in their own areas would not have made a difference because no one would have made a difference because no one would have noticed i.e. it would not have made an impact on anyone.
I agree with William Craig about the civil rights movement being a front for the IRA for two reasons. The first reason is that they cannot have really believed that they would be able to march through Protestant areas peacefully whilst protesting about them, especially when Ireland is a Protestant country.
My second reason is that the IRA were supposedly dormant during this period and to me that does not make sense because becuase they are extremists hence they cannot suddenly not be active and one day start up again. I think the civil rights movement was created to deter the attention from the IRA so they could plan their next step. It was a skillful tactic, as was the English not allowing Catholics to speak Gaelic in order to make it harder for them to plot against the Protestants.
