40th Anniversary of foundation of NI Civil Rights Association

Monday February 05, 2007 12:53

by Seán

A gathering of veteran civil rights campaigners took place in Belfast at the weekend to mark the 40th anniversary of the fonding of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA)

The Fortieth Anniversary of the birth of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement was marked at the weekend close to the former International Hotel venue in Belfast where the first NICRA Executive was elected 40 years ago.

A number of those who had been present at the meeting in 1967 gathered to share and discuss the successes and failures of the movement that went on to initiate the Civil Rights marches of 1968 and received national and world wide attention. The NICRA campaign led to a direct intervention by the British government and major reforms of Northern Ireland including the introduction of one-man-one vote and the disarming of the police.

Des O'Hagan, who in 1967 was a lecturer at Stranmillis Teacher Training College, attended the original meeting as a representative of the Republican Clubs. He recalled the first meeting deciding that NICRA should aim to attract a broad-based membership and initiate a campaign for a Bill of Rights that would benefit all the citizens of Northern Ireland. "This was critical to the subsequent success of bringing in particular, young unionists and liberally minded people to recognise and support the Civil Rights demands for an end to abuses of power by Stormont", he told the 2007 audience. "Those abuses ranged from denying individual voting rights and the gerrymandering of political boundaries. It addressed the unfair allocation of housing, a Special Powers Act akin to the siege mentality of South Africa, a heavily armed police force with a Reserve force of 'B' Specials drawn solely from one side of the community", he said.

Oliver Quinn said that he continued to be amazed at the number of people who in the last forty years claimed to have been at that first NICRA meeting. "You would have needed three hotels to fit them all in," he told the 2007 audience of over 100 that included members of a variety of political parties, legal professionals and Trade Unionists involved in current human and civil rights issues.

Michael Mc Corry said that as one of the relatively small number of sixty in attendance in 1967 that comprised the first NICRA meeting, they were looking for a more democratic Northern Ireland. "In such a short space of time, by December 1969, public support for NICRA's demands and the courage of the unarmed and disciplined ranks of the Civil Rights marchers achieved a political revolution: the introduction of one-man-one vote; the disarming of the RUC; the disbandment of the 'B' Specials; and the creation of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive; with more reforms then to follow on electoral boundaries and an end of gerrymandering, forced on Stormont by James Callaghan and an embarrassed British Government.

" There was no SDLP and no Provisional IRA, they just didn't exist, although there are some people today who think the Provisionals had something to do with Civil Rights. It was the NICRA gains of 1969 that were revolutionary before the bombs and bullets. New paramilitaries such as the Provos and the UDA, destroyed those political advances and condemned us all to 25 years of futile violence and the sectarian politics which has led to the political mistrust we live with today," he said.

A message was read by founding member Marian Donnelly on behalf of long time member and former President of the Workers' Party, Tomas Mc Giolla, who is currently in hospital in Dublin, acknowledged that Republican Clubs had played a major role in the organisation and stewarding of many of the early Civil Rights marches. "NICRA was neither republican nor socialist but focused on civil rights for all of the citizens of Northern Ireland and therein was its strength and the basis of its success. The unfinished business of NICRA, when devolved government is returned to the people of Northern Ireland, remains a Bill of Rights," he said. " A Bill of Rights is the only way to tackle the divided society and sectarian carve-up offered by nationalism and unionism in Northern Ireland today. That can fulfil the aims of the Civil Rights movement that won such international respect and acclaim in seeking to provide rights to all citizens, not contrived religious and political gangs," the veteran republican leader stated in his message to the meeting celebrating the founding of NICRA.

NOTE: The first meeting to launch the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was held in the International Hotel, Belfast on the 29th of January 1967.

Former founding members of NICRA gathered on Saturday the 3rd of February to mark the event in the Lower Falls Social and Recreational Club, Belfast

The first meeting elected an Executive and recognised that there were persons in attendance from: the Belfast and District Trade Council; individual Trade unionists; the Republican Clubs; the Communist Party of Northern Ireland; the Young Unionist section of the Unionist and Conservative Party of Northern Ireland; individuals with no party or Trade Union affiliation including the Mc Cluskey family from Dungannon.