Civil Rights: October 1968–July 1969

Abstract

For six weeks in October and November 1968, a civil rights campaign, based in and more or less confined to Derry, brought thousands of people out to demonstrate on the streets of the city. The campaign proved impossible to repress or ignore. It exerted pressure on the Unionist government of Northern Ireland, not only as a huge media spectacle, but also through sheer force of numbers on the streets. That pressure operated on the ground and also, via media coverage, through Westminster and Dublin. Perhaps the central success of the campaign was to attract outside attention and to bring outside pressure to bear on the Northern Ireland government.