From 13-17 August 1969, Northern Ireland was rocked by intensive sectarian rioting. The riots broke out in response to the Battle of the Bogside in Derry, a three day confrontation between the Catholic nationalist residents of the Bogside and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). Riots were launched elsewhere in Northern Ireland in support of the Bogsiders, in turn provoking reprisals from the RUC and loyalists. The most bloody rioting was in Belfast, where seven people were killed and hundreds more wounded. In addition, thousands of families were driven from their homes. The events of August 1969 are widely seen as the beginning of the conflict known as the "Troubles".

Background

Northern Ireland was destabilised throughout 1968 by sporadic rioting arising out the civil disobedience campaign of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), which was demanding an end to discrimination against Catholics in voting rights, housing and employment. The first major incident occurred in Derry on 5 October 1968, when an NICRA march was baton-charged by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police. Disturbed by the prospect of major violence, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Terence O'Neill, promised reforms in return for a "truce", whereby no further demonstrations would be held. However the truce was broken in January 1969, when People's Democracy, a radical left-wing group, staged an anti-government march from Belfast to Derry. The marchers were attacked at Burntollet bridge, five miles (8 km) outside Derry by militant loyalist Protestants led by Ronald Bunting and many injuries ensued. The RUC were accused by Catholics, nationalists and civil rights activists of failing to protect the march and further rioting ensued in Derry when the marchers arrived and told of what had happened at Burntollet. Amid mounting tension, Terence O'Neill resigned in April and the promises of reform were put on hold by new Prime Minister James Chichester-Clark.

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.

Rioting in Belfast

Belfast saw by far the most intense violence of the August 1969 riots. Unlike Derry, where nationalists were a majority and the fighting was largely between them and the RUC, Catholic nationalists in Belfast were a minority and the rioting when it broke out, rapidly became a sectarian confrontation between them and the majority Protestant population.

Violence breaks out

The first disturbances in Northern Ireland's capital took place on 13 August, when a crowd of roughly 500 staged a rally on Divis street in protest at the RUC's actions in Derry. This rally was initially peaceful and a petition was handed in at Springfield RUC station. However, before long the demonstration turned violent and the nationalist crowd attacked the RUC and a Protestant owned business. The Springfield road RUC station was pelted with stones and petrol bombs and an RUC armoured car was attacked with a hand grenade and rifle fire. Who was responsible for this attack has never been determined. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) denied involvement and indeed was in a very weak situation in the city at the time. However it seems likely that the only nationalists who had access to such weapons would have been present or former members of this organisation. In addition to the attack on the RUC, the car dealership of Protestant Isaac Agnew on the Falls Road was destroyed.

That night barricades went up at the interface areas between Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods.

Burning of Bombay Street

The following night saw the violence in the city worsen.

When Catholic crowds attacked the Divis street RUC station in west Belfast, close to the Protestant Shankill Road, loyalists crowds turned out to oppose them. Fighting broke out along the sectarian "frontier" at Divis street and Cupar street. An IRA unit of six men there exchanged shots with the RUC and loyalist gunmen, resulting in the wounding of three Protestants, one Catholic and an RUC man. A small group of IRA men, led by Billy McKee armed with one Thompson sub-machine gun, a .303 Enfield rifle and several pistols failed to prevent the RUC from penetrating this nationalist area despite desperate efforts and they were followed into it by Protestant crowds.

The result was that loyalists burned out all of Catholic Bombay street and some of the homes on Kashmir street, Conway street, Norfolk street and Cupar street. The RUC then deployed Shorland armoured cars mounted with heavy Browning machine guns to drive the nationalist rioters and gunmen back down Divis street. They were followed by B-Specials (auxiliary police) and Protestant crowds, who began burning Catholic homes and businesses on Dover street, Percy street and Beverly street. At Dover street, another gun battle erupted between the IRA and the RUC, leaving one Protestant dead and three RUC men wounded. A further eight people were injured in an exchange of fire at St Comgall's school on Divis street.

Death of Patrick Rooney and rioting in Ardoyne

These events led the RUC commander in Belfast, Harold Wolsely to believe (mistakenly) that the violence represented an organised attempt by the IRA at insurrection. In fact, the IRA was confined to roughly 20 gunmen in Belfast at the time and was responding to, rather than orchestrating events. Nevertheless, the unionist authorities believed that they were facing a major military threat and accordingly deployed heavy weapons in dealing with nationalist rioters.

Armoured cars equipped with heavy machine guns fired tracer ammunition rounds at the Catholic Divis Tower flats, in the mistaken belief that they contained snipers, killing a nine year old boy, Patrick Rooney while the boy was lying in bed. When the Republican Labour Party Member of Parliament for Belfast Central, Paddy Kennedy, appealed to Northern Ireland Minister for Home Affairs, Robert Porter for such vehicles to be withdrawn, Porter replied that this was impossible as, "the whole town is in rebellion".

Rioting also broke out in Ardoyne in the north of the city. Here also, the violence began as a confrontation between nationalist demonstrators and the RUC and developed into a three way battle involving the police, nationalist gunmen (in this case, not the IRA, but local ex-soldiers) and loyalist crowds. Nationalists hijacked 50 buses from the local bus depot, set them on fire and used them as makeshift barricades to block off access to the Ardoyne. According to republican activist Martin Meehan, 20 Catholics were wounded by shotgun fire that night. Two Catholics were shot dead in gun battles by the RUC and several homes and businesses were burned out by loyalists.

The morning saw many Catholic families in central Belfast flee to Andersonstown and Ballymurphy on the western fringes of the city, in order to escape that night's rioting.

Deployment of British troops

At the request of the RUC, a regiment of the British Army (The Royal Regiment of Wales) was stationed on the Catholic Falls Road to keep order(the start of Operation Banner). Several prominent Republicans, notably Belfast IRA leader Billy McMillen, were also arrested in the early hours of the morning and detained.

In Ardoyne a 48 year old Protestant, David Linton, was killed by a shotgun blast to the face during a riot on Palmer street. A member of the Fianna (youth wing of the IRA), Gerard McAuley, was also shot dead in the disturbances.

Sporadic violence continued in Belfast over the following two days until order, of a sort, was finally restored, with the deployment of more British troops into disturbed areas.

Republican mural of the destruction of Bombay street

Photo of the ruins of Bombay street

Disturbances elsewhere

The NICRA's call for demonstration in aid of the Bogside was also answered in several other towns across Northern Ireland. In Dungannon on 13 August, three Catholic rioters were shot dead by the Ulster Special Constabulary during rioting there. Shots were also fired in the towns of Dungiven and Coalisland, also in County Tyrone.

In Armagh, a Catholic man was shot and killed by the B-Specials during a civil disturbance.

In Newry, nationalists surrounded the RUC station and attacked it with petrol bombs on 14 August.

In Crossmaglen on 17 August, the RUC station was attacked with petrol bombs and three hand grenades.

Effects

The rioting petered out by Sunday, 17 August. Eight people had been killed and 750 injured, of whom 133 (72 Catholics and 61 Protestants) were treated for gunshot wounds. Since many people would have been unwilling to report bullet wounds for fear of police attention, the true total may be higher again. In addition a total of 1,505 Catholic families and 315 Protestant ones were expelled from their homes, either through burning or intimidation. A further 275 commercial premises were badly damaged or destroyed, of which 83% were Catholic.

The riots represented the most sustained violence that Northern Ireland had seen since the early 1920s. Protestants and unionists believed the violence showed the true face of the Civil Rights movement - as a front for the IRA and armed insurrection. Catholics, on the other hand, saw the riots, particularly in Belfast, as an assault on their community, in which the forces of the state had appeared as anything but neutral. The disturbances, taken together with the Battle of the Bogside, are often cited as the beginning of the Troubles. Violence escalated sharply in Northern Ireland after these events, with the formation of new paramilitary groups on either side, most notably the Provisional Irish Republican Army in December of that year. On the loyalist side, the Ulster Volunteer Force (formed in 1966) were galvanised by the August riots and in 1971, another paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association was founded out of a coalition of loyalist militants who had been active since August 1969. The largest of these was the Shankill Defence Association, led by John McKeague, which had been responsible for what organisation there was of loyalist violence in the riots of August 1969. In addition, thousands of British Army troops were deployed into Northern Ireland. While the troops were initially seen as a neutral force, they rapidly got dragged into the street violence and by 1971 were devoting most of their attention to combatting republican paramilitaries.

The role of the IRA

The role of the IRA in the riots has long been disputed. At the time, the organisation was blamed by the Northern Ireland authorities for the violence. However, in fact it was very badly prepared to defend nationalist areas of Belfast, having few weapons or fighters on the ground. In nationalist areas, the IRA was largely blamed for having failed to protect areas like Bombay street from being burned out. A Catholic priest, Fr. Gillespie, reported that in the Ardoyne, the IRA was being derided as "I Ran Away". This humiliation led to a bitter split in the IRA in Belfast. In September 1969, a group of IRA men led by Billy McKee and Joe Cahill stated that they would no longer be taking orders from the Dublin leadership of the IRA, or from Billy McMillen, their commander in Belfast, on the grounds that they had not provided enough weapons or planning to defend nationalist areas. In December of that year, they left the Official IRA to help found a more militant breakway group, the Provisional IRA, dedicated firstly to the armed defence of Catholic areas and then to an offensive campaign against the state of Northern Ireland.

The Scarman inquiry, set up by the British government to investigate the causes of the riots concluded, "Undoubtedly there was an IRA influence at work in the DCDA [Derry Citizen's Defence Association] in Londonderry, in the Ardoyne and Falls Road areas of Belfast, and in Newry. But they did not start the riots, or plan them: indeed, the evidence is that the IRA was taken by surprise and did less than many of their supporters thought they should have done". CAIN: Violence and Civil Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969 - Report of Tribunal of Inquiry

Nevetheless, there remain unanswered questions about the IRA's involvement in the August 1969 riots. Most notably, the question of whether IRA members, perhaps acting without orders, used rifles and grenades to attack the RUC in Belfast on 13 August.

The role of the RUC and the B-Specials

The actions of the RUC in the August 1969 riots are perhaps the most contentious issue arising out of the disturbances. Nationalists argue that the force acted in a blatantly biased manner in the riots, assisting loyalists who were assaulting Catholic neighbourhoods. This perception discredited the police in the eyes of many nationalists and later allowed republican paramilitaries to effectively take over policing in nationalist areas. In his study, `From Civil Rights to Armalites', nationalist author Niall O Dochartaigh argues that the actions of the RUC and B Specials were the key factor in the escalation of the conflict. ``From the outset, the response of the state and its forces of law and order to Catholic mobilisation was an issue capable of arousing far more anger and activism than the issues around which mobilisation had begun, writes O Dochartaigh. Police behaviour and their interaction with loyalist protesters probably did more to politically mobilise large sections of the Catholic community than did any of the other grievances.

The Scarman inquiry found that the RUC were "seriously at fault" on at least six occasions during the rioting. Specifically, they criticised the RUC's deployment of heavy Browning machine guns in built up areas, and the failure to prevent Protestants from burning down Catholic homes in Belfast on 14-15 August. However, they concluded that, "Undoubtedly mistakes were made and certain individual officers acted wrongly on occasions. But the general case of a partisan force co-operating with Protestant mobs to attack Catholic people is devoid of substance, and we reject it utterly". CAIN: Violence and Civil Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969 - Report of Tribunal of Inquiry The tribunal argued that the RUC were under-strength, poorly led and that their conduct in the riots was explained by their perception that they were dealing with a co-ordinated republican insurrection. They pointed to the RUC's dispersal of Protestant rioters in Belfast on 2-4 August in support of the force's impartiality.

Of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC or B-Specials), the Scarman Tribunal said, "There were grave objections, well understood by those in authority, to the use of the USC in communal disturbances. In 1969 the USC contained no Catholics but was a force drawn from the Protestant section of the community. Totally distrusted by the Catholics, who saw them as the strong arm of the Protestant ascendancy, they could not show themselves in a Catholic area without heightening tension. Moreover they were neither trained nor equipped for riot control duty". The report found that the Specials had fired on Catholic demonstrators in Dungiven, Coalisland, Dungannon and Armagh, causing casualties, which "was a reckless and irresponsible thing to do". They had also, on occasion, co-operated with Protestant civilians in the rioting in Belfast. Nevertheless, the tribunal concluded, "But there are no grounds for singling out mobilised USC as being guilty of misconduct". CAIN: Violence and Civil Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969 - Report of Tribunal of Inquiry

References

Sources

• Eamon Mallie, Patrick Bishop, The Provisional IRA, Corgi, Ailesbury, 1988, ISBN 0-552-13337-X
• Ed Moloney, The Secret History of the IRA, Penguin, London 2002
• Richard English, Armed Struggle, A History of the IRA, MacMillan, Oxford 2003, ISBN 1-4050-0108-9
• British Government tribunal of Inquiry into the riots
• Russell Stetler, THE BATTLE OF BOGSIDE, the politics of violence in Northern Ireland (1970)http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/battlebogside/stetler/stetler70.htm
• An Phoblacht article on the riots from 1999 http://republican-news.org/archive/1999/August19/18bom2.html

See also