The Troubles
Derry perceived itself as suffering under unionist government in Northern Ireland, both politically and economically. In the late 1960s the city became the flashpoint of disputes about institutional discrimination and gerrymandering. Despite having a nationalist majority the city was permanently controlled by unionists due to the partisan drawing of electoral boundaries. In addition the city had very high unemployment levels and very poor housing. Overcrowding in nationalist areas was widely blamed on the political agenda of the unionist government, who wanted to confine Catholics to a small number of electoral wards. Yet another contentious issue was the reluctance of the authorities to grant Derry the new University of Ulster, which was instead granted to the predominantly unionist town of Coleraine.
Civil rights demonstrations were declared illegal and then violently suppressed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Ulster Special Constabulary, and Catholics were regularly attacked after loyalist parades. The events that followed the August 1969 Apprentice Boys parade resulted in the Battle of the Bogside, when Catholic rioters fought the police, leading to widespread civil disorder in Northern Ireland and is often dated as the starting point of the Troubles.
The city is often regarded as "the cockpit of the Troubles". On Sunday January 30, 1972, 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead by British paratroopers during a civil rights march in the Bogside area. Another 13 were wounded and one further man later died of his wounds. This event came to be known as Bloody Sunday.
Because of these events, certain areas of Derry produced strong support for republican paramilitaries. Up to 1972, both the Provisional Irish Republican Army and Official IRA operated in the city. However in 1972 the OIRA called a ceasefire following their unpopular killing a local 18 year old who was on leave from the British Army. The PIRA however continued attacking security targets and bombing Derry's commercial centre. In the words of Eamonn McCann in his book, "War and an Irish Town", the city centre "looked as if it had been bombed from the air". Prominent among local Provisional IRA members was Martin McGuinness. After 1974, the smaller group, the Irish National Liberation Army also developed a presence in the city.
The violence in Derry eased towards the end of the Troubles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Irish journalist Ed Maloney claims in The Secret History of the IRA that republican leaders there negotiated a de facto ceasefire in the city as early as 1991. Whether this is true or not, the city did see less bloodshed by this time than Belfast or other localities.
Derry has become known worldwide on account of the troubles. Less well-known is its reputation voted by the Civic Trust in London as one of the ten best cities of its kind to live in, in the United Kingdom.
Read more about this topic: History Of Derry
Famous quotes containing the word troubles:
“Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.”
—Sophocles (497406/5 B.C.)
“The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)