The disparate views on the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland may be explained not only by the wearing of sectarian lenses but also by the more objective difficulty of assessing the history of a movement made up of a number of different groups of varying size and with overlapping but not identical aims and objectives. The individuals involved in these various groupings came from different backgrounds: some nationalist, others republican; most were Catholics but, early on, a few were Protestants; some had socialist leanings, others markedly
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Marxist; some were University students, others were professionals; some were genuinely committed to the idea of civil rights, while others viewed civil rights as a tactic. How does one make sense of such an array of groupings, political affiliations, intellectual backgrounds and beliefs?
One may suggest that one way of understanding the period referred to as the civil rights era is by viewing the period as one marked by change but also by continuity. This view is not widely held. Bob Purdie in his comprehensive study of the origins of the civil rights movement remarked that in the 1960s ―peace seemed secure enough for new departures and new experiments. The civil
rights movement was one of these new departures.‖169
It is certainly true that the civil rights movement‘s tactics of direct action and peaceful civil
protest were novel approaches in Northern Ireland politics170 and to this extent it eventually
managed to shake the complacency of all political parties at Stormont. It is likewise true that the movement was an unprecedented effort to bring civil rights issues at the very centre of political attention and discourse without reference to the issue of partition. The fact that the movement made a strenuous effort to avoid the constitutional issue was a further new departure.
However, as highlighted in the previous Chapter human rights concerns, usually articulated in terms of discrimination, formed part of the political debate in Northern Ireland since the creation of the state. The principal human rights concerns of the period 1921-1964 revolved around the
franchise, the Special Powers Act, employment, housing and self-determination.171 These were
the same issues (except for self-determination) that were raised, admittedly in sharper relief than ever before, by the civil rights movement. This should serve as a reminder that the civil rights movement was characterized by continuity as well as change. The first attempt at enacting a Human Rights Act, which would have included a Human Rights Commission for Northern Ireland, was made in 1964 (by the Ulster Liberal MP Sheelagh Murnaghan) the same year that the Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ) was established. This coincidence further emphasizes both aspects of continuity and change. The continuity refers to the futile parliamentary efforts at dealing with human rights issues while the change refers to the formation of the CSJ as a non- governmental, non-partisan organization devoted to ―bringing the light of publicity to bear on the discrimination which exists in our community against the Catholic section of that community
representing more than one-third of the total population‖.172
169Bob Purdie, Politics in the Streets: The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland (Belfast:
Blackstaff Press, 1990), 1.
170Although one ought to highlight that taking to the streets is a favourite occupation in Northern Ireland with public
commemorations and parades (be they for St. Patrick‘s Day, the 12th of July, the 1916 Easter Rising or Armistice
Day).
171See the preceding Chapter.
172The Campaign for Social Justice in Northern Ireland, ―Northern Ireland: Why Justice Cannot Be Done,‖ 1964,
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Bob Purdie in his already-cited work stated that ―Northern Irish nationalists…had often made the propaganda point that Catholics in Northern Ireland were denied equal rights as citizens of the United Kingdom, but this had never been more than a means of exposing the Unionists in front
of British public opinion; the solution was still a united Ireland.‖173 The insistence by Northern
Irish nationalists that Northern Ireland was an illegitimate entity, the early boycotts and abstentionism and the Nationalist Party‘s refusal to take up the role of Official Opposition at Stormont all seemed to substantiate this view. The view that the Nationalist Party was ineffectual in securing any progress on rights and only used old-fashioned Nationalist flag-waving was also held by significant sections of the Catholic community. This is evident in the election results obtained by the party when challenged by figures emerging from the civil rights movement. John Hume, for example, won election to Stormont in 1969 ,against the leader of the Nationalist Party Eddie McAteer, claiming that ―it was no longer enough simply 'to raise the flag of Ireland once every five years by using it as a political emblem…while doing nothing about the basic problems of the people'. It was evident that people had been forced onto the streets because of their 'disillusionment with the existing political attitudes to the problems of social justice' and the abject 'failure of existing opposition to force the Unionist Government to abandon their policies
which offend.‖174 What is also interesting in this context is that the Nationalist Party was
generally inward looking. It failed to build alliances with Westminster based politicians or parties who could have been helpful to its interests. Partly this was a result of its traditional opposition to partition which translated into a wariness of dealing with Westminster politics. It also was not significantly influenced by international developments in terms of rights language and concepts of fairness. The Civil Rights Movement, as shall become apparent later in this Chapter, was more attuned to international developments and sought to use them to its advantage. It also made a determined effort (especially in its early phase) to attract support from sympathetic figures in UK politics.