1969 Northern Ireland Riots - Battle of The Bogside

Battle of The Bogside

Sporadic violence took place throughout the rest of the year between Catholic nationalists, Protestant loyalists and the RUC, and intensified over the summer, during the Orange Order's marching season. On 2 August, there was serious rioting in Belfast, when Protestant crowds from the Crumlin Road area tried to storm the Catholic Unity Flats. They were held back with difficulty by the police.

This unrest culminated in a pitched battle in Derry from 12–15 August. The Battle of the Bogside began when violence broke out around a loyalist Apprentice Boys of Derry parade on 12 August. The RUC, in trying to disperse the nationalist crowd, drove them back into the nationalist Bogside area and then tried to enter the area themselves. The Bogside's inhabitants mobilised en masse to prevent them entering the area and a huge riot ensued between hundreds of RUC personnel and thousands of Bogsiders. On the second day of this confrontation, 13 August, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association appealed for demonstrations across Northern Ireland in support of the Bogside, in an effort to draw off police resources from the conflict there. When nationalists elsewhere in Northern Ireland carried out such demonstrations, severe inter-communal violence erupted between Catholics, Protestants and the police.