IRELAND The Fight for the Workers' Republic Part Two - The Civil Rights Movement In the last issue of Socialist Outlook, James Healy looked at the struggle for Irish independence and its relation to the fight for socialism in the 1910s and 20s. Here he discusses the struggle in the late 1960s and early 70s, focusing on the different strategies employed by political groupings in the North. The defeat of the Republican forces in the 1920s meant that the partition of Ireland was to survive almost 50 years without a serious challenge. Reaction ruled North and South, as had been predicted by James Connolly. But in the 1960s there was an upsurge in workers' and students' protests, the revolutionary movement in the underdeveloped world and the black civil rights movement in the US. Ireland was no exception. The streets of Derry and Belfast became as famous as those of the Latin Quarter in Paris, and young people hurled themselves against the forces of the Northern Irish state. Northern Ireland became the focus because it was effectively an apartheid state. The Catholic minority were second. class citizens ruled by, 'a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people'. There was wide-ranging legislation to ensure that this state of affairs continued. John Vorster, the Minister for Justice in South Africa, declared in 1963 that he, 'would be willing to exchange all the [repressive] legislation of that sort for one clause of the Northern Ireland Special Powers Act.' Discrimination in jobs and housing meant that Catholics were worse off and this led to despair and emigration. The Unionists practised these policies because, in effect, this was the only way in which they could maintain a majority. Contending Parties The Nationalist Party in the North, which represented the Catholics, had an anti-partition and abstentionist line. In response to the impasse created by their constitutional methods, the IRA began their border campaign which lasted from 1956 to 1962. This purely military campaign was a failure, garnering minimal support, and people again started looked to changes within the constitutional framework of the Northern state. The IRA had begun to reorientate towards a more 'Marxist' (in actuality Stalinist) position which meant that they looked towards establishing a democratic regime in the North as a stage before unification. They were prepared to support the civil rights movement, which began in the early sixties, with a view to moving towards more radical forms of struggle The Northern Ireland Labour Party ( NILP) had significantly increased its 20 votes in the 1962 elections for Stormont, becoming a threat to the Unionist Party. The NILP ignored the issue of partition and concentrated instead on economic reforms that would improve the position of workers, particularly in the Protestant-dominated industries where its membership was based. Within the NILP there was a grouping led by Eamonn McCann called the Young Socialists. These had a Trotskyist orientation and saw the advancement of democratic demands as a way of posing a revolutionary challenge to the power structures of the unreformable The sixties Captain Terence O'Neill became Northern Ireland Premier in March 1963 and initiated a series of reforms aimed at modernizing the economy. The traditional industries of the North were in decline and O'Neill wanted to attract new international capital. At the same time, the Republic of Ireland was moving away from a protectionist economy with the same designs. Economically, the division between the North and South made less and less sense.
These changes brought hope to the Catholics and, combined with political changes within the Catholic community, led to more demands being made. O'Neill arranged a number of high profile meetings with the Irish Premier Sean Lemass and with considerable state funding attempted to create a modern economy. lan Paisley vociferously opposed these meetings. However the funds were directed chiefly at Protestant areas. The Civil Rights Movement and its demands In response to the continuing discrimination, the civil rights movement proper began with the Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ). Initially they used constitutional methods such as lobbying Westminster MPs, documentation of discrimination and legal challenges to try and achieve reform. In 1966 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was formed by a number of organisations. There followed various marches often with Protestant counter- marches. One demonstration in Derry, on October 5 was banned by the government but the organisers decided to go ahead anyway. Police viciously attacked the 2000 marchers with batons and water cannon. Two days of rioting ensued in the Bogside, a mainly Catholic and working class district of the city. The NICRA organised big mobilisations but pushed a decidedly reformist agenda. Though far-reaching, it did not explicitly address the inbuilt sectarianism of the Northern Ireland statelet, but focused instead on making it fairer. Their demands were: 1. Universal franchise. One person one vote. In some elections businessmen often had up to six votes and those without a house of their own did not 2. The redrawing of electoral boundaries. For example in Derry, two Catholic wards elected fewer councillors than 3. An end to discrimination in employment. Catholic unemployment was almost double Protestant 4. A fair system for allocation of housing. Because the Protestants controlled the councils they also controlled who got a house and hence who was able to vote. 5. The Repeal of the Special Powers Act. 3. The disbandment of the feared B Specials. This was an exclusively Protestant force recruited from the Orange Lodges. 7. The withdrawal of the Public Order Bill. This bill supplemented the Special Powers Act allowing for the police to search, arrest and detain 'suspects' without a warrant or trial. In the wake of the events in Derry, there was widespread dissatisfaction with the moderate approach of the NICRA. On October 9, 1968, People's Democracy (PD) was founded at a mass meeting of students from Queen's University in Belfast. Led by Marxists such as McCann and Michael Farrell, its aim was to unite the Irish working class, North and South, Catholic and Protestant, in a struggle for a socialist republic in the whole island. 21 The Long March More demonstrations followed and finally the Protestant government gave in to some of the demands. Based on these reforms, O'Neill appealed for support in a televised speech. A petition was organized and 135,000 signed. With this backing, O'Neill moved to dismiss William Craig, the extreme right-winger in the government. The NICRA called a moratorium on marches to give O'Neill a chance. However, People's Democracy was determined to, 'break the truce, to re-launch the civil rights movement as a mass movement, and to show the people
::ses act. offering them - =-..aton of the civil rights -=** == =: "artin Luther King, PD ca=ca maron ior 1 January 1969 from Betas: i Derm, which came to be known G-ten Year's Day 1969 approximately irenty five marchers started off from Belfast Town Hall. The first town they planned to stay in was closed to them, but their numbers had risen to 120. By the time they reached Burntollet Bridge, rear Derry, they numbered a thousand. Here they were attacked by Loyalist thugs. The police did nothing to stop the attack. Eventually the marchers received a heroes' welcome in Derry, and the Bogside rose against the police, again erecting barricades. Electoral Battles PD's strategy seemed to be working, while O'Neill's was a failure. O'Neill called for elections on February 24. He retained power but eleven anti-Neillite MPs were elected. Two moderate leaders of the NICRA, John Hume and Ivan Cooper, were also elected. In April Bernadette Devlin of PD won a by-election for the seat of Mid- Ulster. Devlin, a 21 year old student, won by a majority of 4,211 votes - meaning that she had also garnered significant votes from Protestants - to become the youngest female MP ever to sit in the British Parliament. On April 28 O'Neill resigned under pressure from the right-wing and James Chichester-Clark took over as Premier. Meanwhile, People's Democracy marched from Belfast to Dublin in a brave attempt to link the struggles in the North with the Southern workers. 3000 people turned up to greet them in Dublin. The Battle of the Bogside Nonetheless, it was the Catholic working class in the North that radicalised most strongly. On August 12, the Derry Apprentice Boys March was attacked by Catholic youths. The police moved against them and the Bogside once again put up the barricades. The NICRA called protests in other towns to relieve the pressure, leading to trouble in most major urban centres, and the Southern Irish government moved field hospitals to the border as thousands of Catholics streamed South. The police were driven back and out of the Bogside. 'Free Derry' was born. Faced with what it saw as urban insurrection, the British government decided that it could no longer simply rely on its Unionist proxies. On August 14 British troops moved in between the police and the Bogsiders. Initially the British troops were greeted as saviours by the Catholic community. However, the barricaded areas, the Bogside and the Falls Road in Belfast, remained liberated and collectives were set up to run affairs in those areas. Radio Free Derry sent out the message on the airwaves and there In the beginning the British troops seemed to be even-handed, sometimes breaking up Protestant mobs. It became increasingly clear, however, that the British were backing the Loyalists. This led to a swelling of the ranks of the IRA, which seemed to many to provide the only answer - armed resistance. The IRA split between the Officials, who carried out attacks in a defensive or retaliatory way and the Provisionals who carried out offensive attacks. The Officials were a continuation of the Stalinist orientation of the sixties while the Provos represented a return to the physical force tradition and were hostile to Communism. Theirs was the most militant but also the less political response to the rapidly polarising situation. Internment and Bloody Sunday In August 1971 the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act of 1922 was introduced again and internment without trial was imposed. Suspected members of the IRA were rounded up and loyalists attacked Catholic communities, which led to 8000 Catholics fleeing to the South. Reports spread of torture carried out on the men interned, including beatings, electric shock treatment and sensory deprivation. On January 30 1972, thirteen anti- internment marchers in Derry were murdered by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment who remain unpunished to this day. Predictably, it was claimed that members of the IRA shot at the army. The day has gone down in history as Bloody Sunday. Thousands of people, chiefly workers, marched to the British embassy in Dublin and, after a three-day siege, burnt it down. The event reinforced the Provos' contention that the armed struggle was the only option and the PD strategy of uniting the Catholic and Protestant working class via mass mobilisations was undermined. 22 Conclusion The hopes that were kindled by the early phase of the civil rights movement - that the two communities could unite against the common enemies, the Protestant ascendancy and the British ruling class - evaporated and it was left mainly to the IRA to lead the assault on power. In any case, in situations such as Palestine, South Africa and Ireland, the bulk of the struggle was and will be waged by members of the oppressed majority. We can only hope to win over a significant minority of the masses who follow the oppressors. More seriously, perhaps, the chance was lost to build an all-Ireland political force that could mobilise workers in the South around anti-imperialist and class demands. In the 1980s, PD successfully stood candidates on the issue of the treatment of IRA prisoners. This encouraged the IRA and Sinn Fein to rethink their narrow military strategy. But Sinn Fein's subsequent focus on elections and gaining office became an end in itself rather than a means of mobilising the masses. Eventually, the bulk of the Republican movement became incorporated into the structures of the Northern Irish state, and the prospect of the Workers' Republic Further Reading: Paul Arthur, The People's Democracy 1968-1973, 1974 Peter Beresford Ellis, A History of the Irish Working Class, 1972 Bernadette Devlin, The Price of my Soul, Michael Farrell, Northern Ireland: The Orange State, 1976 Eamonn McCann, War and an Irish Town, Mike Milotte, Communism in Modern Ireland: The Pursuit of the Workers' Republic since 1916, 1984 Bob Purdie, Politics in the Streets: The origins of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland, 1990 1 : Pude 1990: p.:16