There are still people who say that the ira were not involved,but they are not facing up to the fact that they were involved.

BILLY McMILLEN

Billy McMillen (also known as Billy Mac Maoláin, Liam McMillen and Liam Mac Maoláin) was an Irish republican activist and an officer of the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA). He was killed in 1975, in a feud with the Irish National Liberation Army, which had broken away from the OIRA.

McMillen was born in Belfast in 1927 and joined the IRA at age 16 in 1943. During the IRA's Border Campaign (1956-62), he was interned and held in Crumlin Road jail. In 1964, he ran in the British general election as an Independent Republican candidate.

In 1967, McMillen was involved in the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, being a member of a three-man committee which drew up the Association's constitution.

In Stormont the Nationalist Party, the largest parliamentary opposition group, bluntly refused to accept the title of Her Majesty's Official Opposition. They were opposed to the Government, but not officially, and in a consciously unofficial manner they complained about discrimination against Catholics and simultaneously practiced discrimination against Protestants in some Nationalist-controlled councils.

For electoral purposes the Republicans usually contested Westminster elections, always on an abstentionist ticket. The Nationalists settled for attendance at both Stormont and at Westminster.

From 'We Shall Overcome' 1978. A history of the N.I. Civil Rights Movement.

In all there was over one hundred people present and a 13 man committee was elected to draw up a draft constitution and a programme of campaign for submission to a later meeting.
The 13 man steering committee later elected the following officers:

Chairman: Noel Harris [DATA]
Vice Chairman: Conn McCluskey [CSJ]
Secretary: Derek O'Brien Peters [Communist Party]
Treasurer: Fred Heatley [Wolfe Tone Society]
P.R.O.: Jack Bennett [Wolfe Tone Society]
Other members of the committee were:
Betty Sinclair [Belfast Trades Council]
Billy McMillen [Republican Clubs]
John Quinn [Liberal Party]
Michael Dolley [National Democratic Party]
Joe Sherry [Republican Labour Party]
Jim Andrews [Ardoyne Tenants Association]
Paddy Devlin [Northern Ireland Labour Party]
Tony McGettigan [no affiliation]
NICRA'S OFFICIAL BIRTH
While the Queen's students highlighted the need for the right to freedom of political association, NICRA held its meeting to ratify the constitution on April 9th 1967. It was on this date that NICRA officially came into existence. There were some changes in the executive council with Ken Banks [DATA], Kevin Agnew [Republican] and Terence A. O'Brien [Derry, no affiliation] replacing Andrews, McMillen and McGettigan.

Led politically by the Nationalist Party and in violence by the IRA, sections of the 'Catholic' minority believed that their rights as individuals could be guaranteed only in an all-Ireland republic. Their political aspirations were articulated with equal ineffectiveness by both protagonists. The IRA carried on campaigns of violence in every decade up to and including the sixties. Each campaign was less effective than the previous one. With the prospect of victory constantly receding, the struggle became an end in itself, a form of sporadic ritual carried over from a period in political history which only Unionist discrimination made relevant. In Stormont the Nationalist Party, the largest parliamentary opposition group, bluntly refused to accept the title of Her Majesty's Official Opposition. They were opposed to the Government, but not officially, and in a consciously unofficial manner they complained about discrimination against Catholics and simultaneously practiced discrimination against Protestants in some Nationalist-controlled councils.

One of those Nationalist controlled Councils was in Newry..

Hennessy,op,cit. In 1958,of the twenty full-time clerical staff working for Newry Urban District Council,all were Catholics; of the seventy outdoor full-time workers all were Catholics; of the 765 houses belonging to the Council,only 22 were occupied by Protestants..
Hope Against History by Jack Holland page 309 (notes)

Take it easy, mate.

Hard to say mate. I think the demographics are pretty much the same. There are a lot of people I think who would prefer the situation to stay as it is. The 'hard-heads' who look at the economic side of things, I think can see the benefits of the present system.....the best of both worlds.

For the last lot of months they have been streaming over the border in their thousands to shop in Ulster. The car-parks were full of Eire registered cars. All the stores (especially in the border areas) are reporting huge sales boosted by those crossing into Ulster. So much so that the Eire goverment is kicking up hell about it,appealing to their people to shop in Eire and even threatening some sort of action.

Not so long ago the situation was reversed,though on a smaller scale as people from Ulster went to Eire for cheaper petrol. So a lot of people on both sides would see the benefits of the situation staying as it is. Maybe the old reiver instinct still prevails after all these years.

Off out now in a wee while for a few beers. ATB for now mate.

The Stormont Papers

UNIVERSITIES Scholarships in Arts and Science at Maynooth College 25th Oct 1966

4. Mr. Currie asked the Minister of Education what has been the result of his discussions with local education authorities concerning grants to students attending St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.
The Minister of Education (Captain Long): As a result of discussions which have taken place I think it likely that all local education authorities will in future adopt a common basis for assessing the value of university scholarships in arts and science held at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, with a maximum annual value of £225 plus fees.

Mr. Currie: I would thank the Minister for his reply. I can assure him that many of those students who were under severe hardship will be very relieved. Can the Minister now give me an assurance that on all occasions in the future students at Maynooth College will be treated in exactly the same way as students of any other college as regards grants?

Mr. Patrick Gormley: May I, as a member of the Londonderry County Education Authority, congratulate the Minister on the fact that all authorities are coming into line with the practice of that committee of not making any distinction between educational establishments north of the Border and those south of the Border, such as Trinity College, Maynooth and U.C.D.?

5. Mr. O'Reilly asked the Minister of Education whether he will review the present permissive power possessed by local education authorities to make grants towards the cost of school uniforms for necessitous children.
Captain Long: The powers of local education authorities to provide school uniforms for necessitous pupils were clarified in the Education (Amendment) Act 1966. There have been some doubts in the minds of the authorities as to the exercise of their powers in this respect and I propose to discuss the matter with them. After these discussions have taken place I have in mind the issue of a circular giving further guidance on the subject.

Back in the 1960s,Gerry Adams admits that republicans were central to the formation of the civil rights movement,as unionists had always claimed. They packed the first meeting,steering it their way but deliberately allowing only two of their members on to the executive.

They sat back,providing most of the organisation,while more acceptable faces gave a lead. Sounds familar? Exactly the same thing has happened in the residents groups,as RTE revealed in a recent Adams tape,even though they have taken on a life of their own. When you have made up your mind,as commited republicans like Adams have that partition is the root of all evil,the rest is simple.

The irreformable statelet has to be eliminated by one means or another,and the unionists actively persuaded to find another identity

Violence,always excused by reference to MOPE ( the Most Oppressed People in Europe),was one method,but in latter years the combination of politics plus targeted violence has made far more headway. Just as Stormont fell to civil rights,violence and boycotts,Sinn Fein obviously hopes that unionism will succumb,or commit suicide,under pressure from the British and Irish goverments and the IRA.

Professor Rose in his enquires into discrimination in Ulster mentioned that there were other Catholic controlled councils which practised discrimination against Protestants but it never said who these councils were in the book I read. Professor Rose brought out a book 'Governing Without Consenus' shortly after that which dealt with the situation here. It may have mentioned these councils in that book. But even earlier on in this thread I quoted a part from the civil rights book 'We Shall Overcome'in which even they admitted that Nationalist controlled councils discriminated against Protestants.

But we as Protestants/lUnionists failed to get this across,though have to admit nobody was interested in hearing another side to the story. The protest movement thoughout the western world had been the opportunity the ira and others had long waited for and they seized it with open arms. The ground work had been done for them in lands as far away as France,Germany,Australia,America. The world though TV saw what was happening in these countries and so were already prepared to see Ulster as being the same...an oppressed people kept down by an authoritive regime. The civil rights in America especially was the one they modelled themselves on here. Here again the sympathy already gained by MLK was transplanted to here and they had only to mouth the same words and sing the MLK anthem 'we shall overcome' adding that they were the 'white negroes' in Ulster. So really Ulster Protestants were up against it from the word go. The media wasn't even prepared to listen to what we had to say. I think their attitude could be seen in how they described the two peoples.

Protestants were described as 'mobs' and 'thugs'
Catholics were described as 'protesters' and 'demonstrators' Hardly impartial reporting.

I remember watching Eamon McCann saying on tv about a man who pretended in front of a TV camera of one of the most famous images of the troubles of a RUC man striking a Civil Rights member with a baton and the man said God Save Us, that image was shown throughout the world, but totally stage managed for the television cameras. It happened in Londonderry, what got me about McCann was he was laughing about, that incident was probably one of the images that helped fuel the fire of flames for the troubles in Ulster.

It proves again the traitors from within our own community, lundys like Ivan Cooper etc deserve to pay a heavy price for their treacherous behaviour.

What didn’t help our cause was Ian Paisley. He was a republican dream, if ever you wanted a man who would come across as an uncompromising sectarian bigot to the media, off-course he was mainly full of hot air but to a world audience unacquainted to Ulster, he epitomised everything the enemies of Ulster had been saying in propaganda terms against the Unionists of Ulster, regardless of the facts.

Fire and brimstone political talk and chants of No Surrender, go down well with Ulster prods, wither they lack substance or not. Yet, to a world wide audience, it is nothing but bigoted rhetoric

O'Neill was to blame too for what happened as it was him who took the Unionist Party on an entirely different course without even consulting his own cabinet. HE certainly didn't believe in gradualism. When he sprang the Lemass visit on the people, the people naturally wondered 'what the hell is going on here' and there was a lot of fear and worry. Paisley was the man who came on the scene and spoke what a helluva people were thinking. He was the man who was staying true to the cause. O'Neill was taking them to God knows where....an all Ireland maybe. So Paisley exploited these fears and concerns for his own ends. There was a time when you would have been lynched for saying that but time has proven that to be true. Whatever you say about Paisley you have to admit he was a con artist of the top order. ''You can't fool the people all of the time'' but he certainly did it long enough to get his money and position out of it all. I put my hand up to him in that respect.

Yip O’Neill was a political fool, a man who just couldn’t grasp the fact that many Roman Catholics want to see a United Ireland and at that time, wanted nothing to do with British Ulster. I think he seen it in straight economic terms, rather than from a local level. May be to much time spent in England. I agree with the concept of “if you give a Roman Catholic a decent job, they won’t live of national assistance and have 15 children”. Yes true, if someone is working, rather than scrounging of the state they wouldn’t have as big a families as they wouldn’t be able to afford to keep them, plus they would be contributing to society.

But the difference is, most Roman Catholics in Ulster obviously not all wanted nothing to do with this community and through their church had their own schools, hospitals,GAA erc , and at that time most R.C tended to live in rural areas or the west of the Province areas were there was very little work, at that time most of industrial Ulster was built around Belfast and the greater area which was predominantly Protestant. He just couldn’t grasp that R.C. couldn’t be trusted with the administration and security of this Province.

He also seen the visit of Lemass as just that of another neighbouring Country, rather than the visit of a nation who held a territorial claim over our Country and which was a cold house for Protestants.

I think he suffered from naivety on the situation on the ground in Ulster and the mentality of the Irish.

I think Paisley played it to a tee, he’s done well for himself, he’s set his legacy as a man of hot air and treachery for the people of Ulster who were his most loyal followers. The Ulster prod like the street warriors, boys like Paisley,Bill Craig and Geordie Seawright inspire a wee bit a fire in our belly’s while men like Enoch Powell, James Molyneux might talk sense, but standing in a suit with a shirt and tie, doesn’t inspire the same flames of passions as the political spectaculars like the big rallies, the marches and protests with fire and brimstone talk and the flags fluttering in the background.

Malachy McGurran
Malachy McGurran (1938 – 27 July 1978) was a leading Irish republican and founding member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, of which he was chairman.

A native of Lurgan, County Armagh, McGurran joined Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army in 1955. He was interned in the Curragh military barracks, near Dublin, from 1957 to 1959 during the IRA Border Campaign.

A lot of what is going on now in the middle east reminds me of the same in the 1960s which happened in the western world. How it starts off and then spreads to other countries. The people seem to get swept away with emotion generated from country to country sometimes with no real serious greivence but all part of an uprising which is carried along by a wanting to be a part of the action. That too was the mood in the 1960s.

I think I read first of a demonstartion in Algeria,then it was Tunisia,Jordan,Egypt,Yemen and just today I heard on the news that Algeria are staging a protest demonstration. I'm wondering will the Muslim Brotherhood emerge as being the instigators in the background pulling the strings as the ira were here.

Paisley has made a good living for him and his family out of the 'troubles' there is no doubt about that. But there are still people who think hes the greatest. One of the mates I would see on a Saturday night is one of them. I have stopped discussing it with him as things got a bit heated sometimes,especially with a few beers involved. I think some of it is a genuine belief but some of it is because they don't want to admit that Paisley 'took them on'. There was a letter in the NL this week by some DUP councillor who was replying to a previous letter by a TUV man. In it he was crowing about how Paisley junior had wiped the floor with Allister. Sad to say he had a point.

As mentioned before, people seem to prefer a man involved in shady deals.. a wheeler-dealer, and reject a man of principle