A Heavy Load: The American Civil Rights Movement and the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement

Abstract

Northern Ireland too enjoyed its “high sixties.” It boasted a local pop scene which gave rise to one of the most innovative artists produced by that genre, Van Morrison. In the charismatic and skilled Manchester United footballer, George Best, East Belfast produced the feted “fifth Beatle.” The real Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix toured Ulster venues to the usual hysterical reaction. ¹ A mild anti-Vietnam War movement developed, a few hardy souls experimented with drugs, and at Queen’s University the playwright John Antrobus, determined to shock bourgeois sensibilities, stripped naked during a debate.² Problems of socially disruptive teenagers cropped up and gates were erected at the doors of the famous Linen Hall library, opposite City Hall, to ward off congregations of bored teenagers. Most such youth, when interviewed, declared themselves to be politically apathetic, though one laconically predicted in February 1968 that hippie peace and love was about to give way to “a big violence kick next.”³