Derry Guildhall & Civil Rights -- Stormont Watch

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Date Posted: Sun, Jul 27 2008, 11:13:23 PDT
Author: Letter to editors
Subject: Derry Guildhall & Civil Rights

LETTER TO EDITORS

A Chara, Derry Guildhall and Civil Rights-R.S.V.P.

Derry�s Guildhall is an impressive building that became the focus of many protests over generations, not least in the 1960s. It was once considered in derogatory terms on a par with Tammany Hall in NYC for its �faceless men�, machine politics, political graft, patronage and manipulation of housing allocation, voters and electoral boundaries. Now almost forty years after Derry�s first official civil rights march on October 5th 1968 one is delighted to confirm that much has changed. Now, under its historic roof those days of anti-sectarian, militant yet non-violent protest action and transformation can at long last be soberly reflected upon, without a Special Powers Act banning order from a bigoted Minister of Home Affairs upholding a one-party state. I pray that on Oct. 4 & 5 the Guildhall, can yet again, not only by local Derry folk, be well and truly �occupied�!

As a co-founder of Nicra in �67 I remember well the initial marches in 1964 of the trail-blazing hut-dwellers of Springtown Camp. They are remembered with pride as part of the struggles for proper insulated homes and civil rights within the 1968-2008 commemorative website www.nicivilrights.org So too are many others including the founders of the Campaign for Social Justice, Austin Currie, the Goodfellow and Gildernew families amid the �67 Caledon eviction, our iconic chief marshal of stewards, the late �Vinny� Coyle, the late Cathy Harkin, a socialist-feminist pioneer of Women�s Aid, activists within the Derry Housing Action Committee and Nicra, in addition to many others, including the parents and other representatives of eleven families who squatted in the Guildhall�s Council Chamber for seven weeks. Much more remains to be added to this, our, your website. Surely some IT literate readers will consider taking on a challenge, for posterity�s sake, to deeper and widen these recently-created archives?

As they say, like creating life itself, there can be no eventual joy without an initial degree of productive effort, therefore my appeal to your readership for positive feed-back as we approach the 40th anniversary of October 5th 1968. Can we simply or foolishly forget that pivotal date? I think not! Poets can always express themselves much better than most �mere mortals�. W.B. Yeats springs to mind, �All changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty was born�.

On Oct. 4 & 5 there will be at least four items on the Guildhall programme, an International Conference, a photographic exhibition, �Media Reflections� focusing on journalists� recollections of the era, and an �I was there� session, to which as many people as possible are being invited to stand up and recall their personal struggles, and that of their families and organisations, for basic human rights and civil liberties.

If I have aroused your interest and your feel you can assist in any way, please contact me via rights.civil@googlemail.com or the Derry civil rights veterans� voice-mail on 028 71 286359. Your input is not only cordially invited but essential if we deem our individual and collective experiences worthy of any note. Certain elements at home and abroad no doubt retain a hope that our voice boxes are very hoarse or we suffer from amnesia like most revisionist historians, so that we are either uncomfortable or unable to communicate effectively. These Oct. 4 & 5 events, as with all others on the 1968 programme, will be A/V recorded as part of an historical archive. Such will be an educational and inspiration resource long after most of such have gone on our last march, hopefully still protesting, out of this �Vale of Tears� into eternity, and even possibly into the historical records.

Is Mise,
Le Meas Mhor,

Fionnbarra O�Dochartaigh,
An Oct. 5th 1968 March organiser

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Replies:

Re: Derry Guildhall & Civil Rights -- SLIGHT ERROR, Sun, Jul 27 2008, 11:40:16 PDT