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The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association ((アイルランド語:Cumann Chearta Sibhialta Thuaisceart Éireann)) was an organisation which campaigned for civil rights for the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in Belfast on 9 April 1967,〔See http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/crights/nicra/nicra781.htm〕 the civil rights campaign attempted to achieve reform by publicising, documenting, and lobbying for an end to discrimination in areas such as elections (which were subject to gerrymandering and property requirements), discrimination in employment, in public housing and alleged abuses of the Special Powers Act.〔Ruane & Todd, pp 121-25.〕 The genesis of the organisation lay in a meeting in Maghera in August 1966 between the Wolfe Tone Societies which was attended by Cathal Goulding, then chief of staff of the IRA.〔English, p 91.〕〔Purdie, p 132.〕 Four years earlier, in 1962, the IRA had ceased military operations after the failure of its Border Campaign, hoped that through the nascent civil rights movement in Northern Ireland which had begun in 1963-64 by the Homeless Citizens' League and the Campaign for Social Justice, would arise a campaign of civil disturbance which would assist its efforts to unseat the Unionist government in Belfast, and that the creation of NICRA would enable it to direct that campaign's course.〔English, p 98.〕〔Purdie, pp. 127-30.〕 Socialist republicans and, besides Goulding, at least one other republican paramilitary, Liam "Billy" McMillen, were among those involved in founding NICRA, but some historians believe the IRA did not direct the association.〔Foster, p. 589〕〔Coogan, p. 56.〕〔Purdie, pp. 150, 155.〕 The Cameron Report (see ()) partially confirms the republican dimension which existed in NICRA but does not state that it was a defining factor. NICRA was also infiltrated by provocateurs, most notably Michael Farrell and Cyril Toman, who pressed for more militant activities, especially in the form of contentious marches. Toman later became a Sinn Féin activist. During its formation, NICRA's membership extended to trade unionists, communists, socialists, with republicans eventually constituting five of the 13 members of its executive council. The organisation initially also had some Unionists, with Young Unionist Robin Cole taking a position on its executive council.〔Purdie, p. 133.〕 IRA influence over NICRA grew in later years, but only as the latter's importance declined, when violence escalated between late 1969 until 1972, when NICRA ceased its work. ==Origins== Since Northern Ireland's creation in 1922, the Catholic minority had suffered from varying degrees of discrimination from the Protestant and Unionist majority.〔Whyte, John, "How Much Discrimination was there Under the Unionist Regime 1921-1968?", ''Contemporary Irish Studies'', Gallagher and O'Connell (eds; 1983). Manchester: Manchester University Press.〕 Many nationalist historians regard the ethos of Northern Ireland as unambiguously sectarian,〔Ruane & Todd.〕〔Foster, pp. 526-31.〕〔Coogan, pp. 24-25〕 however, Senia Paseta posits that discrimination was never as calculated as republicans maintained nor as fictional as unionists claimed.〔Senia Paseta (2003), ''Modern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction'', p. 107. Oxford Paperbacks.〕 * Electoral representation. Proportional representation had been enshrined in the constitutions of both Northern Ireland and what later became the Irish Free State and then the Republic of Ireland, with a view to protecting the minorities in each state, by the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Although the Republic has retained that system to this day, proportional representation for local government elections was abolished by Northern Ireland's devolved government in 1922 and for parliamentary elections in 1929.〔Foster, p 529.〕 The property franchise (which granted votes in local elections only to those who owned property) weighted representation heavily in favour of the Protestant community, as did the plural business votes they enjoyed for parliamentary elections. The result was that many towns and cities with a Catholic majority, even a substantial one, were Unionist-controlled: examples included Londonderry, Armagh, Dungannon, and Enniskillen. Electoral boundaries were carefully engineered: Belfast's representatives in Stormont went up to 16 in 1921, but (as in the days when it had been four), there was no increase in the nationalist representation, with Belfast continuing to return only one member of parliament.〔 In the 1966 elections to the Westminster parliament, the Ulster Unionist Party won 11 of Northern Ireland's available 12 seats, while in 1969 Stormont elections some 39 out of the 52 available seats (i.e., 75%) went to the Unionist and Unofficial Unionist parties. The Stormont Assembly returned the Protestant Official Unionist Party (later Ulster Unionist Party) to office continuously between Northern Ireland's founding in 1922 and the dissolution of the Assembly in 1972.〔Bew, Gibbon and Patterson, et al. ''Northern Ireland 1921-2001: Political Forces and Social Classes.'' (2001) London, Serif.〕 * Policing. Of the institutions of state, the police in particular were perceived by Catholics and nationalists as being in support of the Protestant and Unionist majority.〔Bew, Gibbon and Patterson, ''Northern Ireland: 1921/2001 Political Forces and Social Classes'', p. 27〕 Representation of Catholics in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, formed in 1922, never exceeded 20% and by the 1960s had sunk to 12%.〔Morrison, John. "The Ulster Government and Internal Opposition", ''The Ulster Cover-Up'' (paperback). Lurgan, County Armagh: Ulster Society (Publications) Ltd. pp. 26, 39–40; ISBN 1-872076-15-7.〕 The reserve police force (the Ulster Special Constabulary) was comprised on its formation largely of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteers and led by the Ulster Volunteers' former commander, Wilfrid Spender and remained almost exclusively Protestant until its disbandment. * Employment. The 1971 Census offered the first opportunity to assess the extent of any discrimination in employment, as it was the first census since 1911 that provided cross-tabulation by religion and occupation.〔(Bell, ''Voice For All: General Overview'' ), Institute for Conflict Research (2008).〕 The Census documented that Protestant male unemployment was 6.6% compared to 17.3% for Catholic males, while the equivalent rates for women were 3.6% and 7% respectively. Catholics were overrepresented in unskilled jobs and Protestants in skilled employment. Catholics made up 31% of the economically active population but accounted for only 6% of mechanical engineers, 7% of 'company secretaries and registrars' and 'personnel managers', 8% of university teachers, 9% of local authority senior officers, 19% of medical practitioners, and 23% of lawyers. * Housing. Housing was inter-related with electoral representation, and therefore political power at local and Stormont levels. The general vote was confined to the occupier of a house and his wife. Occupiers' children over 21 and any servants or subtenants in a house were excluded from voting. So the allocation of a public authority house was not just the allocation of a scarce resource: it was the allocation of two votes. Therefore, whoever controlled the allocation of public authority housing effectively controlled the voting in that area.〔Coogan, p. 30, quoting Austin Currie, MP.〕 Since 1964, the Campaign for Social Justice had been collating and publicising in its journal ''The Plain Truth'' what it regarded as evidence of discrimination. Its precursor, the Homeless Citizens League, had been holding marches to press for fair allocation of social housing.〔Purdie, Chapter 3.〕〔(CAIN website ), cain.ulst.ac.uk; accessed 25 February 2015.〕 Both of these organisations has arisen at a time when the African-American civil rights organisation was headline news around the world.〔Purdie, p. 91〕 Both achieved success in bringing anti-Catholic discrimination to the attention of the media and, in the case of the Campaign for Social Justice, to politicians in Westminster.〔Purdie, p. 93.〕 The idea of developing this non-partisan civil rights campaign into one with wider objectives as an alternative to military operations, which the IRA Army Council had formally ceased on 26 February 1962,〔''The United Irishman'', March 1962, p. 1; see also Patrick Bishop, Eamonn Mallie, ''The Provisional IRA'', Corgi 1988, p. 45; ISBN 0-552-13337-X〕 was pursued by the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society,〔 although redirecting the civil rights movement to assist in the achievement of republican objectives had been mooted previously by others (including C. Desmond Greaves, when he was a member of the Connolly Association) as "the way to undermine Ulster unionism".〔English, p. 86.〕 The idea shared certain attributes with that of infiltrating Northern Ireland's trade unions as a means of furthering republican objectives, which had previously been tried and abandoned by the IRA in the 1930s.〔 The concept (set out in the August 1966 bulletin (''Tuarisc'') of the Wolfe Tone Societies) was to "demand more than may be demanded by the compromising elements that exist among the Catholic leadership. Seek to associate as wide a section of the community as possible with these demands, in particular the well-intentioned people in the Protestant population and the trade union movement."〔Quoted in Purdie, p 128.〕 In 1969, after the civil rights movement had been active for several years, the strategy was described in ''Ireland Today'', published by the Republican Education Department, as requiring that: ''"the civil rights movement include all elements that are deprived, not just republicans, and that unity in action within the civil rights movement be developed towards unity of political objectives to be won, and that ultimately (but not necessarily immediately) the political objective agreed by the organised radical groups be seen within the framework of a movement towards the achievement of a 32-county democratic republic."''〔Purdie, p 129.〕 At a meeting which took place in Maghera on 13–14 August 1966 at the home of Kevin Agnew (a Derry republican solicitor),〔(Info re Kevin Agnew ), books.google.com; accessed 27 February 2015.〕 attended by the Wolfe Tone Societies of Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Derry and County Tyrone, and the IRA's chief of staff, Cathal Goulding,〔Purdie, pp. 123-24, 132-33.〕 it was proposed that an organisation be created with wider civil rights objectives as its stated aim. After these discussions it was decided to drop the Wolfe Tone Societies tag, and an ad hoc body was formed which organised a seminar on 8 November 1966 in Belfast. The main speakers were the president of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, Kader Asmal, a South African-born lecturer in law at Trinity College Dublin, and Ciarán Mac an Áilí, a Derry-born Dublin solicitor who was a member of the International Commission of Jurists and president of the Irish Pacifist Association. It was agreed that another meeting should be called to launch a civil rights body and this took place in Belfast on 29 January 1967. Tony Smythe and James Shepherd from the National Council of Civil Liberties in London were present and there were more than 100 delegates from a variety of organisations, including Northern Ireland political parties.〔〔Purdie, p 133.〕 The 13-member steering committee tasked by the Belfast meeting with drafting NICRA's constitution (of whom one, Dolley, had taken part at the meeting at Agnew's house) were:〔Coogan, p 57. Note that Coogan's list of members of what he describes as "the first committee" is not accurate: he lists the membership as it was after the meeting held on 9 April 1967, which ratified the constitution. See (here )〕 * 1. ''Chairman'': Noel Harris, a trade unionist and member of the Draughtsmen and Allied Trades Association. * 2. ''Vice-Chairman'': Conn McCluskey (one of the founders of the Campaign for Social Justice).〔John Manley, "'Father' of civil rights movement dies", ''The Irish News'', 17 December 2013〕 * 3. ''Secretary'': Derek O'Brien Peters, of the Communist Party. * 4. ''Treasurer'': Fred Heatley, of the Wolfe Tone Societies. * 5. ''Information Officer'': Jack Bennett, a journalist with ''The Belfast Telegraph''. * 6. Betty Sinclair, a communist member of the Belfast Trades Council. * 7. Liam McMillen, vice-chairman of the Republican Clubs (Commanding Officer, Official Irish Republican Army's Belfast Brigade). * 8. John Quinn, of the Ulster Liberal Party. * 9. Professor Michael Dolley, of Queen's University Belfast, a civil libertarian〔Coogan, p 57.〕 and member of the National Democratic Party (Northern Ireland).〔http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/crights/nicra/nicra781.htm〕 * 10. Joe Sherry, of the Republican Labour Party. * 11. Jim Andrews, of the Ardoyne Tenants Association. * 12. Paddy Devlin, of the Northern Ireland Labour Party. * 13. Tony McGettigan, unaffiliated. NICRA held a meeting to ratify the constitution on 9 April 1967. It was on this date that NICRA officially came into existence.〔 There were some changes as the steering committee became NICRA's executive council, with Ken Banks of DATA replacing Andrews; Kevin Agnew, a republican solicitor, replacing McMillen; and Terence O'Brien (unaffiliated) replacing McGettigan. Betty Sinclair became chairman. Robin Cole, a liberal member of the Young Unionists and chairman of the Queen's University Belfast Conservative and Unionist Association, was later co-opted onto the executive council.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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