The reaction of the Protestant community to the methods of protests was that, they saw the Civil Rights Movement as a plot- to destabilise Northern Ireland. The Protestants also held counter protests. Many working class Protestants resented the impression given in the media, that only Catholics suffered poverty and hardship, while a privileged Protestant community looked down on them. They also had to deal with poor living conditions and hardship.
The Northern Ireland Government (Wilson’s Government) has to take much of the blame for the outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland. From the time when he came to control in 1964, he completely ignored the situation in Northern Ireland, even though he was warned about the increasing anxiety. The reaction of this government was that as the anxiety increased, Wilson put pressure on O’ Neill to act decisively and to do something to diminish discrimination. On 22 November 1968, O’Neill announced a package of reforms. They may not seem much of a big deal today, but they were the biggest concessions by the Unionist-dominated Stormont government in 50 years. The reforms that O’ Neill made were as follows:
- The Londonderry Corporation (the local government of Londonderry which had been elected o the gerrymandered system giving Unionists a majority) was diminished and instead a new appointed commission, which took over all of its functions. This new commission was made up of people who were effectively civil servants who would run services and facilities until democratic reforms took place and a new corporation was elected.
- Local councils would allocate housing on a needs related points system, meaning those who needed the houses more got the house, whether they were Catholics or Protestants.
- Some of the Northern Irelands Government’s Special Powers Act was to be removed.
- An independent OMBUDSMAN would investigate complaints against local authorities.
- The principle of one vote (meaning one person only got one vote whether they had high value property or not) would be considered.
After the reforms were made, the civil rights leaders agreed to suspend their protests to allow the reforms time to have some effect. During this period, O’ Neill soon found himself in a very difficult position, trying to be a moderate in a country which was becoming increasingly extremist. Ian Paisley accused him of being a traitor to the Protestants, while combative Catholics were soon criticising him as well. Even if this was happening, the majority of people, Catholics and Protestant, supported O’ Neill. The majority of Northern Ireland was not extremists. O’Neill was a reasonable politician who found it exceptionally difficult to deal with extremists; the reforms he made were hurried. They were too extreme for his unionist critics, but not too extreme enough for his republican critics.
There was 5 weeks of peace after the reforms were created. Then on New Year’s Day 1969, the People’s Democracy March was held. About 40 people, mainly students who supported the People’s Democracy, set out to walk across Northern Ireland from Belfast to Londonderry. The People’s democracy was a fringe association within the civil rights campaign. It’s members were mainly militant socialist students, led by Eamon McCann, Michael Farrell and Bernadette Devlin. Devlin was quite open about their aims, which was that they wanted to break the truce between O’Neill and the civil rights movements and to show people that O’Neill was offering them nothing. This march took a period of three days. On the first two occasions the marches were re-routed by the RUC to avoid confrontation with the loyalist counter marchers and demonstrators who formed human barricades across the intended routes. Some of the counter marches that were held were led by Paisley himself. Television cameras closely followed the marches. On the third march however, marchers were at Burntollet near the city of Londonderry. There they were suddenly ambushed by a loyalist mob, the television camera’s that were there caught the whole scene. Televisions across the country showed the violence, it showed protestors being bombarded with bricks, bottles and stones. The mob the closed in, and beat the marchers with iron bars and sticks. Most alarmingly, the RUC escort, who was meant to prevent the conflict, appeared to do nothing to protect the marchers. Investigations that were carried out later showed that some of the mobs were actually off-duty police or special constables. That same night, there was even more riots throughout the city of Londonderry. RUC officers and B- Specials invaded Catholic Bogside area, smashing shops, breaking windows and singing Protestant songs.
This new wave of violence affected O’Neill’s government, and himself personally very severely. All this violence was leading to near anarchy in Northern Ireland, but there was more violence to come O’ Neill tried to continue his reasonable policies, but he had lost support of his own MP’s, so he decided to ask the people of Northern Ireland to give their opinion of his reasonable policies. On the 24 February, O’ Neill called an election. Ian Paisley stood against him in his own constituency. Michael Farrell form the People’s Democracy also stood against O’ Neill. What he did achieve was to take over 2000 Catholic votes, which O’Neill would have probably gained. This meant that O’Neill’s winning boundary over Paisley in his constituency was much smaller than it would’ve been. The results of the election destabilized O’Neill and enhanced Paisley. Overall, O’Neill won the elected but he managed to pull it off. A succession of bombs explosions now heightened the tension still further. More Unionist MP’s were turning against O’Neill because they thought the IRA was in action again, although it was later discovered that the bombs were in fact planted by Loyalists to incriminate Republicans. By now the militants had the upper hand, and Northern Ireland was getting out of control. O’Neill knew that he had failed and was forced to resign on 28 April 1969. O’Neill’s cousin James Chichester-Clark was the next Northern Ireland Prime Minister. He was a typical Unionist much like O’Neill. He was neither a reformer nor a disciplinarian; he held a senior position in the party. He inherited a terrible situation.
As the summer marching season approached, tension in Northern Ireland was rising. In July, there was a riot following a march in Dungiven, which resulted in the first death in the renewed Troubles. As the date for the Londonderry Apprentices Boys’ march approached, the people of the Catholic Bogside area of Londonderry feared the worst. The most notorious part of the route of the march was along the walls of the city where marchers could look down on the Catholic Bogside and Creggan. There was a long record of violence, usually between rival loyalist and republican gangs after the march had passed this area. Given the heightened tension in 1969 a march which created violence in ‘normal times’ seemed a huge risk. The Catholics knew there was going to be violence, so they prepared themselves, they barricaded the Bogside. The power to ban marches lay with Northern Irelands Home Affairs Minister Robert Porter, who was, of course a Unionist. The Nationalist leader John Hume asked Porter to ban the Apprentice Boys’ march, but Porter refused to ban it. Being refused by Porter, Hume then went to the Home Office in London, which also ignored and accused him of being alarmist.
There were other factors that contributed to the anarchy. One of them was the Battle of Bogside. The Apprentice Boys’ march itself was relatively peaceful. However, soon after it ended, the violence began. Protestants and Catholics started throwing missiles at each other; this was after Loyalists threw pennies at the Catholics, which was a traditional insult. Before long there was a riot. When the RUC attempted to take down a barricade on Rossville Street, the riot turned into a battle. Missiles and petrol bombs were thrown at police from the residents of Bogside. There are two different explanations for the battle. The police’s version is that they were trying to get into better positions to separate the mobs. On the other hand, the Catholics version is that this was a direct attack by the police, aided by loyalist thugs, on Catholic homes. The violence spread to Belfast. Thousands of people were burnt out of their homes, and there seemed to be a real possibility of a massacre of the city’s Catholics. The rioting continued for two whole days, in what became known as the Battle of Bogside. The police were unable to enter the area. The first of Northern Ireland’s ‘no-go’ areas had been created.
