Brave people still demanding civil rights for all are true inheritors of NICRA, not SDLP or Provisionals

IN recent days, two parties that did not exist at the time were outbidding each other, claiming to be the inheritors of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

It would appear that the Republican Clubs are to be written out of history by those who, by their sectarianism and/or violence, led to the demise of NICRA.

The first meeting to set up NICRA was held in Maghera in 1967 and it was formally established in 1968. The SDLP was not formed until 1970. The SDLP was not “born out of NICRA”, but the resurrection of nationalist sectarian politics which still plague our society.

The squat in Caledon was organised by Brantry Republican Club. Republican Clubs was the name adopted by Sinn Fein (Official) in the north to overcome the Stormont ban and allow them to engage in electoral politics.

Not everyone in the republican movement supported this. Those who opposed the new direction went on to form the Provisionals, the majority of whom were hostile to the civil rights campaign, seeing it as reformist.

NICRA was not about civil rights for Catholics, but for everyone. It was not a nationalist campaign, but to reform and democratise Stormont. Its demise was the result of being driven off the streets by violence and ongoing sectarianism.

The Republican Clubs (now the Workers Party) were to the fore in founding NICRA, organising and stewarding marches and other protests.

NICRA campaigned for civil rights for all, irrespective of religion, race, disability, or any form of nationalism.

The true inheritors of civil rights are those who continue to campaign against any form of sectarianism, or racism, and who defend the rights of workers against the austerity attacks being imposed by Westminster and the political parties at Stormont.

MARIAN DONNELLY By email