The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was formed in Belfast in April 1967 by those opposed to ethnic Protestant ‘Orange State’ denial of civil rights and social opportunities to ethnic Roman Catholics. NICRA's London branches were spied upon by the HN68 ‘Sean Lynch’ and HN301 ‘Bob Stubbs’ between 1969 and 1972.
Northern Ireland campaign
NICRA campaigned to reform the Northern state, demanding democratic rights through mass peaceful protest. It was influenced by the Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ) founded in 1964 and modelled on the civil-rights movement in the United States. The creation of NICRA marked a move from passive information-gathering to mass public protest.
The new organisation brought together elements of the CSJ, republicans from Sinn Féin and Wolfe Tone Societies, members of trade unions and trades councils, the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP), the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party of Northern Ireland (CPNI).
The first civil-rights marches organised by NICRA were in the latter part of 1968 and were focused on discrimination in housing, the franchise and the drawing of electoral boundaries. They were violently opposed by both the paramilitary Protestant Volunteers and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). In 1969, assaults on civil-rights marches in Derry by the RUC led to rioting, resulting in deaths at the hands of the police and sectarian violence.
As the political situation deteriorated, civil-rights protests became identified by many as being ‘Catholic’. In August, British army units were deployed and the first stages of internment, mass detention without trial, were introduced by the government of Northern Ireland. The initial batch of 24 ‘political prisoners’ included two members of the NICRA executive.
In June 1970, NICRA attempted to head off the increasing political violence with a widely supported ‘Bill of Rights’. The initiative failed, though in 1971 there was an upsurge in NICRA’s activities in response to the increasing use of internment and torture by the British state. Several more leading members of NICRA’s executive were interned and one, latterly a chairman, subjected to intense psychological torture.
NICRA initiated a campaign of civil disobedience and planned a protest march in Derry on 30 January 1972. The killing of 14 people by the Parachute Regiment at this demonstration became known as Bloody Sunday and marked the high-water mark of the civil-rights movement.
Despite 100,000 marching in Newry a week after Bloody Sunday, the events in Derry effectively ended NICRA’s demonstrations as they were no longer able to guarantee the safety of the marchers. The introduction of direct rule in March 1972 and the growing violence of the Troubles changed the political landscape NICRA had operated in, relegating it to the political sidelines for the rest of the 1970s.
NICRA London branches
NICRA’s branches in London first appear in SDS reports in May 1969, which record the group reaching out to the Irish Civil Rights Solidarity Campaign (ICRSC), known after September 1970 as the Irish Solidarity Campaign (ISC) to participate in a rally NICRA was organising in Trafalgar Square, central London, in June. The ICRSC/ISC was being monitored by SDS undercover ‘Sean Lynch’.
NICRA followed up this successful rally a month later with a day-long occupation of the Ulster Office in Mayfair which gained significant press coverage.
By September 1969, NICRA had 12 London branches in operation, including Highgate, Fulham and Hammersmith, Walthamstow and the largest, Clapham and Tooting, with a combined total membership of 650. At this point Lynch began to focus on NICRA, attending private meetings of the Hammersmith and Highgate branches, London region delegate meetings and an Annual General Meeting between 1969 and 1971. Another SDS officer 'Bob Stubbs’ briefly monitored the Fulham and Hammersmith branch of NICRA in 1972.
In 1970 NICRA organised several protests in London which led to scores of arrests. These included an attempt to confront the prime minister of Northern Ireland at a London Ulster Society banquet in the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington, in March. This was followed in June by several marches and pickets over the imprisonment of Bernadette Devlin, then MP for Mid-Ulster.
In July 1971, in collaboration with another Irish support group in London, Clann na hÉireann , NICRA held a demonstration protesting against internment. However, as the situation in Northern Ireland deteriorated further in the wake of Bloody Sunday, NICRA’s active membership declined in the UK. Many turned to new organisations such the Anti-Internment League and the ISC whose political message now resonated more. Disputes with other organisations continued, and in July 1972 only 300 attended a NICRA rally in London, after which the London branches faded from sight.
Sources
NICRA, "We Shall Overcome"... The History of the Struggle for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland 1968-1978 (NICRA, Belfast, 1978).
Lee, AM, ‘Nonviolent Agencies in the Northern Ireland Struggle: 1968-1979’, The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare 7(4), 1980.
Byrne, M, ‘Politics beyond identity: reconsidering the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland’, Identities 22(4), 2015.
Collins, M, The History of the People’s Democracy, unpublished PhD thesis, Ulster University, 2018.