“Come Hell, High Water or Herr William Craig…”, #CivilRights50

On 5th October, 1968, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (N.I.C.R.A.) staged the first of the civil rights marches in Derry demanding an end to discrimination in housing allocation, gerrymandering and restrictions in the right to vote. You can read some more on the background to N.I.C.R.A. here. By the October 1968 march, it had

“a position paralleled only by continental dictatorships”: the abuses that prompted the Civil Rights campaign

Much of the recent commentary has focused on debating the origins and ‘ownership’ of the civil rights campaign. What has been missing from the discussion has been a timely reminder of the actual abuses that prompted the campaign. At heart, the civil rights campaign was addressing a fundamental democratic deficit created by Unionists limiting the

A history of NICRA by its first treasurer, Fred Heatley, published in Fortnight in 1974

Fred Heatley, who was for a number of years an executive member of NICRA, wrote a series of articles on the growth and development of the Association which were published across five issues of the magazine Fortnight in 1974, starting with issue 80 on 22nd March with the last instalment in issue 84 on 7th

The earlier prehistory of the civil rights campaign: more IRA than NICRA?

Far from dismissing the involvement of the IRA and Sinn Féin in the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in 1967, is it time to acknowledge, instead, that it drew its roots and methods more from prisoner release organisations of 1960-62 than any of the individuals and organisation that subsequently coalesced with