CAMPAIGN FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND, NORTHERN IRELAND: THE PLAIN TRUTH, Second Edition (1969)
Introduction:
The Campaign for Social Justice was one of several civil rights organizations to lobby for reform in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s. They staged various campaigns to raise awareness among British political leaders of the unequal distribution of political power in the six counties of Northern Ireland and the structural inequalities in economic opportunities faced by the Catholic population. The selections from The Plain Truth pamphlet below outline these grievances and the slow response from political leaders in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
Source:
Full version at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/crights/pdfs/truth.pdf
Text:
Introduction
Since 1920, when Ireland was divided, the Republic of Ireland has been a separate independent state, while Northern Ireland has remained an integral part of the United Kingdom. It is now loosely termed ‘Ulster’ although there were nine counties in old-time Ulster, three of which are now in the Republic of Ireland. The British Parliament in London first legalized this arrangement by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920 (H. M. Stationery Office, London). London has since ruled Northern Ireland through its subordinate Parliament at Stormont, Belfast.
Both London and Stormont have always been at pains to present the province as a happy, contented place, whereas in fact it contains a minority which has always been very hard pressed, and indeed denied rights which most of the free world has come to accept as a matter of course.
The outside world was largely unaware of what was going on in Ulster mainly because the British press had always been discouraged from printing stories about it. Some years ago when a British television group had a series of documentaries suppressed, the leader of the reporting team, Alan Whicker, declared ‘No country deserves the Government you have here. This is the only place in the world where you can’t report honestly without silly people kicking up about what is only the truth.’
Since the 5th October, 1968, when a peaceful Civil Rights march was broken up by the police, the world has been looking at Northern Ireland on television, and reading about her in the press, first with incredulity, and then shock.
Civil Rights activities have been opposed by various groups of militant Protestants. These people already have their civil rights, and do not wish to share them with others. They have caused the recent unrest by opposing democratic demands for change. This opposition has been effected mainly by violent counter-demonstrations, and by arbitrary police bans on Civil Rights marches in certain places, e.g., in the city of Londonderry.
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Job Discrimination
… it has always been Unionist policy, not only to control the numbers, but to keep the Roman Catholics as ‘second class citizens’ in their own land. They have been rightly referred to as ‘the white negroes of Ulster.’
Even the opportunity of menial work is denied first to them. As a result of this they make up by far the greater proportion of the dole queues. The Campaign for Social Justice asked a parliamentarian to request names of all on unemployment benefit in one town so that a percentage figure could be arrived at, but the Government refused this.
In a town of half and half Unionists and anti-Unionists which we Surveyed, the anti-Unionists predominated on the unemployment register in a ratio of about ten to one.
But it is in the higher ranks that the politico-religious discrimination is most serious because the lack of opportunity here forces emigration of the best Catholic brains
In this publication the figures we present are not earlier than 1968, unless otherwise stated.
The Professional and Technical Grades
- Cabinet Officers: 5 total, 0 Catholics
- Houses of Parliament: 6 total, 0 Catholics
- Ministry of Finance: 62 total, 3 Catholics
- Ministry of Agriculture: 29 total, 1 Catholic
- Ministry of Commerce: 9 total, 2 Catholics
- Ministry of Development: 32 total, 2 Catholics
- Ministry for Education: 7 total, 0 Catholics
- Ministry of Health and Social Services: 35 total, 3 Catholics
- Ministry of Home Affairs: 8 total, 0 Catholics
- Exchequer and Audit Department: 10 total, 2 Catholics
- Parliamentary Draughtsman’s Office: 6 total, 0 Catholics
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Police
Royal Ulster Constabulary Complement, just over 3,000, 10% of which are Catholic+ 50 Officers in ; R.U.C. six are Catholic: 120 Head Constables, 16 are Catholic; 400 Sergeants, 50 Catholic (1967 figures). Upkeep. £6.7 million in the coming year, of which over 15 million is pay and allowances.
Ulster Special Constabulary
This is a sectarian part-time force 11,300 strong. All members are Protestant. They are mainly recruited from members of the Orange Order. As recipients of Unionist patronage these constitute a private Unionist army. They have the right to retain their firearms in their own homes. There have been several documented cases of vicious attacks by members of the Ulster Specials on peaceful Civil Rights marchers, and on other anti-Unionists. Specials in mufti have been found in possession of firearms at counter demonstrations to Civil Rights marches. The Government has recently augmented its full-time police force with well over 1,000 of these men – upkeep – £972,700 in the coming year….
Police Brutality
Up to October 5th, 1968, with some notable exceptions, relations between the police and the minority, were normal.
At the first Londonderry Civil Rights march the Royal Ulster Constabulary sealed off the marchers in Duke Street in front and behind and batoned them indiscriminately. Gerry Fitt, M.P., was wounded on the head. Edward McAteer, M.P., in the groin. A girl was batoned on the mouth. The people were hosed with water cannons. This was all witnessed by two British labour M.P.s., John Ryan and Mrs. Anne Kerr. While this was going on, police not actively engaged were laughing. (see report in the “Listener,” a B.B.C. publication, 24:10:68)
At a later date student marchers at Burntollet Bridge received scant protection from the R. U. C., who fraternized freely with the Paisleyites led by Major Bunting. Students were stoned, beaten with nail-studded clubs, and thrown into a stream. Threats of rape were made on the women. (See report in “Sunday Times,” London, 27:4:69) .
In January 1969, police, some alleged to be intoxicated, broke into houses in Lecky Road, Derry, and, using obscene and sectarian abuse, attacked the citizens indiscriminately with batons and kicks. As a result, 190 formal complaints against the police were documented.
Again, demonstrating its particular brand of “democracy” the Ulster Government ordered an Enquiry to be carried out by, police officials themselves! The Government has refused to make the results of this Enquiry public.
In April 1969, in Derry, the police were caught at a disadvantage and were stoned by a mob and some injured. Police later invaded Catholic homes and rendered many men, women (including a semi-invalid) and children hospital cases!
At demonstrations the police always face the Civil Rights groups, and turn their backs to the militant Protestants, with whom many police are on terms of easy familiarity.
We are well aware that a stable society depends on a responsible and esteemed police force. Successive Unionist Ministers of Home Affairs have, for their own ends, allowed a sadistic minority of policemen to destroy the reputation of the force.
Special Powers Act
In April 1963, the South African Minister of Justice, now the Prime Minister, introduced a new Coercion Bill by saying that he ‘vould be willing to exchange all the legislation of that sort for one clause of the Northern Ireland Special Powers Act. ”
This Act, which has been continuously in operation since 1922, empowers the authorities to:
- Arrest without warrant.
- Imprison without charge or trial and deny recourse to habeus corpus or a court of law.
- Enter and search homes without warrant, and with force, at any hour of day or night.
- Declare a curfew and prohibit meetings, assemblies (including fairs and markets) and processions.
- Permit punishment by flogging.
- Deny claim to a trial by jury.
- Arrest persons it is desired to examine as witnesses, forcibly detain them and compel them to answer questions, under penalties, even if answers may incriminate them. Such a person is guilty of an offence if he refuses to be sworn or answer a question.
- Do any act involving interference with the rights of private property.
- Prevent access of relatives or legal advisers to a person imprisoned without trial.
- Prohibit the holding of an inquest after a prisoner’s death.
- Arrest a person who ‘by word of mouth’ spreads false reports or makesfalse statements.
- Prohibit the circulation of any newspaper.
- Prohibit the possession of any film or gramophone record.
- Arrest a person who does anything ‘‘calculated to be prejudicial to the preservation of peace or maintenance of order in Northern Ireland and not specifically provided for in the regulations.”
- The Act allows the Minister of Home Affairs to create new crimes by Government Decree, e.g., he recently made it a crime to name a club a ‘‘Republican Club.”
The Ulster Government has all the usual legal remedies at hand to maintain the peace. Some of these laws, like the new Public order Act Amendments, are much more repressive than anything in Britain. Indeed, if the provisions are carefully studied it becomes apparent that what the Unionists are in fact doing is making these Amendments so penal that they may be enabled to drop the Special Powers Act at a later date.
We suggest that the Special Powers Act is retained in Northern Ireland by a nation of bullies to intimidate a subject people, since it applies to no other part of the United Kingdom.
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Housing
Apartheid in Northern Ireland – Ghetto Housing
In towns where the Unionists have a slender majority they consolidate their position by the use of gerrymandered wards. They can convert a paper minority into a majority by this means.
This is how it is done
The town is divided into wards, frequent]y three in number. In the two smaller Unionist wards the electors are thinly spread and allocated the same number of councillors per ward as the anti-Unionists who are crammed into the third ward, and give the same number of councillors. Londonderry is the classical example and is detailed overleaf. This also happens in Dungannon, Omagh, Armagh, Enniskillen and many other places The most notorious single ghetto housing estate with regard to size is one owned by Belfast Corporation, called Turf Lodge, where there are 1,175 Catholic families and only 22 Protestant families. (1967 figures)
There is another Government sponsored body in Northern Ireland, the Housing Trust, which builds homes for letting. It often mixes the religions, and we found in such estates that Protestants and Catholics live together in amity, and have a much healthier attitude to each other. The Trust usually selects better-off people since they make more stable tenants, the most needy being thereby passed over. However, in most towns the bigoted Unionist councils see to it that the balance of power is not upset, even obstructing the Housing Trust if too many Catholics are being accommodated, e.g., Enniskillen and Londonderry.
The Trust is not blameless of occasionally practicing religious discrimination. It has refused enquiring opposition M.P.s information as to how it selects tenants. More often than not it re-lets to people of the same religion as the old tenants, and not solely on need.
Voting Injustices
In many areas, where they would be in danger from a simple majority, the Unionists manipulate electoral boundaries in a very undemocratic way known as gerrymandering’, and thereby keep control. [See image below]
In local government electi
ons there is denial of ‘one man, one vote.’ Only householders and their wives have one vote each. This means that in all of Northern Ireland there are at present a quarter of a million people disfranchised out of a total electorate of less than one million. To prevent control passing from them Unionists refuse to allocate Catholics their fair share of local authority housing -– built with public funds, denial of a house meaning denial of a voice in local affairs. Thus Catholics are not in a position to help their co-religionists who are forced to emigrate.
Catholics may be on housing waiting lists for up to twelve years or longer, whilst Protestants can often choose their council house and have it allocated before they are married.
Such a case was spotlighted in 1968 at Caledon in Co. Tyrone by Austin Currie, M.P., who, after he had exhausted all legal remedies available, himself squatted in a council house. This house had been allocated to a young unmarried stenographer of a Unionist candidate for a Westminster seat, Mr. B. McRoberts.
Housing injustices such as this cause great bitterness at local level, and our Campaign is deeply resentful of the unchristian way the least influential and articulate members of the Catholic population have been squeezed out over the past forty-eight years.
British political leaders like Prime Minister Wilson, Lord Butler, Lord Brooke, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and many others before them have been given full details of these injustices, but so far nothing concrete has been done.
Pressure from outside has recently compelled the Unionists to offer ‘one man, one vote’. “This will be useless unless each vote is of equal value, in other words if there is no gerrymander. It is something of a tragedy that there is no apparent groundswell of Protestant public opinion in favour of this course. lt would be hard to imagine the Unionists taking an honourable course in this vital field of public authority housing and voting.
Selection from Bernadette Devlin, The Price of My Soul (1969)
Introduction:
Bernadette Devlin played a key role in organizing the radical students’ group People’s Democracy at Queen’s University in Belfast in 1968. As part of her activism, she participated in the January 1969 civil rights march from Belfast to Derry. Her popularity led to her election to the British Parliament as an independent (she was 21 at the time and is the youngest person to have been elected to the Westminster Parliament). The Price of My Soul is her 1969 memoir, written after her election to Parliament and high profile arrest (and imprisonment) for having participated in the Battle of the Bogside in August 1969.
Source:
Bernadette Devlin, The Price of My Soul (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), pp. 146-149
Text:
And then we came to Burntollet Bridge, and from lanes at each side of the road a curtain of bricks and boulders and bottles brought the march to a halt. From the lanes burst hordes of screaming people wielding planks of wood, bottles, laths, iron bars, crowbars, cudgels studded with nails, and they waded into the march beating the hell out of everybody.
…As I stood there I could see a great big lump of flatwood, like a plank out of an orange-box, getting nearer and nearer my face, and there were two great nails sticking out of it. By a quick reflex action, my hand reached my face before the wood did, and immediately two nails went into the back of my hand. Just after that I was struck on the back of the knees with this bit of wood which had failed to get me in the face, and fell to the ground. And then my brain began to tick. “Now, Bernadette,” I said, “what is the best thing to do? If you leave your arms and legs out, they’ll be broken, You can have your skull cracked, or your face destroyed.” So I rolled up in a ball on the road, tucked my knees in, tucked my elbows in, and covered my face with one hand and the crown of my head with the other. Through my fingers, I could see legs standing round me: about six people were busily involved in trying to beat me into the ground, and I could feel dull thuds landing on my back and head. Finally these men muttered something incoherent about leaving that one and tore off across the fields after somebody else.
When everything was quiet, and five seconds had passed by without my feeling anything, I decided it was time to take my head up. I had a wee peer round…. The attackers were beating marchers into the dithes, and across the ditches into the river. People were being dragged half-conscious out of the river. Others were being pursued across the fields into the woods. Others had been trapped on the road and were being given a good hiding where they stood. As I got shakily to my feed and looked round, I saw a young fellow getting a thrashing from four or five Paisleyites, with a policeman looking on: the policeman was pushing the walking-wounded marchers up the road to join the front rows and doing nothing to prevent the attack….
As I turned to walk away, an unconscious girl who was bleeding about the head somewhere was carried by two of the marchers to a police truck, and the constable in the truck pushed her away with his foot. “She must get to the hospital,” said the marchers, pushing her in. “Take her to the hospital yourself,” said the constable, pushing her out. At that, two other officers came over and threw him out of the truck. “For Christ’s sake, let the child in,” they said. A few policemen were at least trying to stop us from being killed, but the others were quite delighted that we were getting what, in their terms, we deserved.