Desmond Greaves and the origins of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland

Sean Redmond, Connolly Association, 244 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8JR, 24 pages, £2.50

Desmond Greaves (1913-88) was a labour historian widely known for his biographies of James Connolly and Liam Mellows. From the mid-1950s to mid-1970s he was the leader of the Connolly Association in Britain and editor of its monthly journal Irish Democrat. The Connolly Association campaigns for a united and independent Ireland and for the rights of the Irish in Britain.

This booklet gives a very useful account of the civil rights campaign which Desmond Greaves pioneered in the mid-1950s. The aim was to achieve a peaceful solution to the Irish problem by exposing the wide range of discriminatory practices which prevailed under the Stormont regime (in,

for example, jobs, housing and elections) with a view to discrediting and dividing unionism and in the process winning allies for the cause of Irish unification.

In the mid-1960s the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was formed with widespread support, especially from trade unions and the Belfast Trades Council. The civil rights marches which it organised led to significant reforms, but also to violent attacks by hardline unionists. Then the IRA intervened and there followed 30 years of violence.

The present situation bears remarkable similarities with those in the late 1960s, with equal rights in a devolved government on the agenda. That is why this history of the civil rights movement is so important.