Free Derry

Free Derry was a self-declared autonomous Irish nationalist area of Derry, Northern Ireland that existed between 1969 and 1972 during the Troubles. It emerged during the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, which sought to end discrimination against the Irish Catholic/nationalist minority by the Protestant/unionist government. The civil rights movement highlighted the sectarianism and police brutality of the overwhelmingly Protestant police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
The area, which included the mainly Catholic Bogside and Creggan neighbourhoods, was first secured by community activists on 5 January 1969 following an incursion into the Bogside by RUC officers. Residents built barricades and carried clubs and similar arms to prevent the RUC from entering. Its name was taken from a sign painted on a gable wall in the Bogside that read, "You are now entering Free Derry." For six days, the region was a no-go area, after which the residents dismantled the barricades and RUC patrols resumed. Tensions remained high over the following months.
On 12 August 1969, sporadic violence led to the Battle of the Bogside, a three-day pitched battle between thousands of residents and the RUC, which spread to other parts of Northern Ireland. Barricades were rebuilt, petrol bomb "factories" and first aid posts were established and a radio transmitter broadcast messages calling for resistance. The RUC fired CS gas into the Bogside, the first time that gas had been employed by UK police. On 14 August, the British Army were deployed at the edge of the Bogside and the RUC were withdrawn. The Derry Citizens Defence Association declared their intention to hold the area against both the RUC and the British Army until their demands were met. The British Army made no attempt to enter the area. The situation continued until October 1969 when, following publication of the Hunt Report, military police were allowed in.
The Irish Republican Army began to rearm and recruit after August 1969. In December 1969, it split into the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA. Both were supported by the people of Free Derry. Meanwhile, the initially positive relations between the British Army and the nationalist community worsened. In July 1971, there was a surge of recruitment into the IRA after two young men were shot dead by British troops in Derry. The government introduced internment on 9 August 1971 in Operation Demetrius. In response, barricades were again erected around Free Derry. This time, Free Derry was defended by well-armed members of the IRA. From within the area they launched attacks on the British Army, and the Provisionals began a bombing campaign in the city centre. As before, unarmed "auxiliaries" manned the barricades, and crime was handled by a voluntary body known as the Free Derry Police.
Support for the IRA rose further after Bloody Sunday in January 1972, when 13 unarmed men and boys were shot dead by the British Parachute Regiment during a protest march in the Bogside. Following the Bloody Friday bombings, the British retook the "no-go" areas. Free Derry came to an end on 31 July 1972 in Operation Motorman, when thousands of British troops moved in with armoured vehicles and bulldozers.

Background

City lies near the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It has a majority nationalist population, and nationalists won a majority of seats in the 1920 local elections. Despite this, the Ulster Unionist Party controlled the local council, Londonderry Corporation, from 1923 onwards. The Unionists maintained their majority, firstly, by manipulating the constituency boundaries so that the South Ward, with a nationalist majority, returned eight councillors while the much smaller North Ward and Waterside Ward, with unionist majorities, returned twelve councillors between them ; secondly, by allowing only ratepayers to vote in local elections, rather than one man, one vote, so that a higher number of nationalists, who did not own or rent homes, were disenfranchised; and thirdly, by denying council housing to nationalists outside the South Ward constituency. The result was that there were about 2,000 nationalist families, and practically no unionists, on the housing waiting list, and that housing in the nationalist area was crowded and of a very poor condition. The South Ward comprised the Bogside, Brandywell, Creggan, Bishop Street and Foyle Road, and it was this area that would become Free Derry.
The Derry Housing Action Committee was formed in March 1968 by members of the Derry Branch of the Northern Ireland Labour Party and the James Connolly Republican Club, including Eamonn McCann and Eamonn Melaugh. It disrupted a meeting of Londonderry Corporation in March 1968 and in May blocked traffic by placing a caravan that was home to a family of four in the middle of the Lecky Road in the Bogside and staging a sit-down protest at the opening of the second deck of the Craigavon Bridge. After the meeting of Londonderry Corporation was again disrupted in August, Eamonn Melaugh telephoned the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and invited them to hold a march in Derry. The date chosen was 5 October 1968, an ad hoc committee was formed and the route was to take the marchers inside the city walls, where nationalists were traditionally not permitted to march. The Minister of Home Affairs, William Craig, made an order on 3 October prohibiting the march on the grounds that the Apprentice Boys of Derry were intending to hold a march on the same day. In the words of Martin Melaugh of CAIN "this particular tactic...provided the excuse needed to ban the march." When the marchers attempted to defy the ban on 5 October they were stopped by a Royal Ulster Constabulary cordon. The police drew their batons and struck marchers, including Stormont MP Eddie McAteer and Westminster MP Gerry Fitt. Subsequently, the police "broke ranks and used their batons indiscriminately on people in Duke Street". Marchers trying to escape met another party of police and "these police also used their batons indiscriminately." Water cannons were also used. The police action caused outrage in the nationalist area of Derry, and at a meeting four days later the Derry Citizens' Action Committee was formed, with John Hume as chairman and Ivan Cooper as vice-chairman.

The first barricades

Another group formed as a result of the events of 5 October was People's Democracy, a group of students in Queen's University Belfast. They organised a march from Belfast to Derry in support of civil rights, starting out with about forty young people on 1 January 1969. The march met with violent opposition from loyalist counter-demonstrators at several points along the route. Finally, at Burntollet Bridge, five miles outside Derry, they were attacked by a mob of about two hundred wielding clubs—some of them studded with nails—and stones. Half of the attackers were later identified from press photographs as members of the B-Specials. The police, who were at the scene, chatted to the B-Specials as they prepared their ambush, and then failed to protect the marchers, many of whom ran into the river and were attacked with stones thrown from the bank. Dozens of marchers were taken to hospital. The remainder continued on to Derry where they were attacked once more on their way to Craigavon Bridge before they finally reached Guildhall Square, where they held a rally. Rioting broke out after the rally. Police drove rioters into the Bogside, but did not come after them. In the early hours of the following morning, 5 January, members of the RUC charged into St. Columb's Wells and Lecky Road in the Bogside, breaking windows and beating residents. In his report on the disturbances, Lord Cameron remarked that "for such conduct among members of a disciplined and well-led force there can be no acceptable justification or excuse" and added that "its effect in rousing passions and inspiring hostility towards the police was regrettably great."
That afternoon over 1,500 Bogside residents built barricades, armed themselves with steel bars, wooden clubs and hurleys, and told the police that they would not be allowed into the area. DCAC chairman John Hume told a meeting of residents that they were to defend the area and no-one was to come in. Groups of men wearing armbands patrolled the streets in shifts. A local activist painted "You are now entering Free Derry" in light-coloured paint on the blackened gable wall of a house on the corner of Lecky Road and Fahan Street. For many years, it was believed that it was John 'Caker' Casey that painted it, but after Casey's death it emerged that it might have been another young activist, Liam Hillen. The corner where the slogan was painted, which was a popular venue for meetings, later became known as "Free Derry Corner". On 7 January, the barricaded area was extended to include the Creggan, another nationalist area on a hill overlooking the Bogside. A clandestine radio station calling itself "Radio Free Derry" began broadcasting to residents, playing rebel songs and encouraging resistance. On a small number of occasions law-breakers attempted crimes, but were dealt with by the patrols. Despite all this, the Irish Times reported that "the infrastructure of revolutionary control in the area has not been developed beyond the maintenance of patrols." Following some acts of destruction and of violence late in the week, members of the DCAC including Ivan Cooper addressed residents on Friday, 10 January and called on them to dismantle the barricades. The barricades were taken down the following morning.

April 1969

Over the next three months there were violent clashes, with local youths throwing stones at police. Violence came to a head on Saturday, 19 April after a planned march from Burntollet Bridge to the city centre was banned. A protest in the city centre led to clashes with "Paisleyites"—unionists in sympathy with the anti-civil rights stance of Ian Paisley. Police attempting to drive the protesters back into the Bogside were themselves driven back to their barracks. A series of pitched battles followed, and barricades were built, often under the supervision of Bernadette Devlin, newly elected MP for Mid Ulster. Police pursuing rioters broke into a house in William Street and severely beat the occupant, Samuel Devenny, his family and two friends. Devenny was brought to hospital "bleeding profusely from a number of head wounds." At midnight four hundred RUC men in full riot gear and carrying riot shields occupied the Bogside. Convoys of police vehicles drove through the area with headlights blazing.
The following day, several thousand residents, led by the DCAC, withdrew to the Creggan and issued an ultimatum to the RUC – withdraw within two hours or be driven out. With fifteen minutes of the two hours remaining, the police marched out through the Butcher's Gate, even as the residents were entering from the far side. The barricades were not maintained on this occasion, and routine patrols were not prevented.
Samuel Devenny suffered a heart attack four days after his beating. On 17 July he suffered a further heart attack and died. Thousands attended his funeral, and the mood was sufficiently angry that it was clear the annual Apprentice Boys' parade, scheduled for 12 August, could not take place without causing serious disturbance.