Named after the Dublin Housing Action Committee, the DHAC's initial actions (March 1968) involved disrupting meetings of the Unionist-dominated Londonderry Corporation to protest at the lack of housing provision in the city.
[citation needed] The Derry Housing Action Committee and its sister organisation Derry Unemployed Action Committee had many members and supporters from the James Connolly Republican Club, trade unionists and labour party members, amongst its activists were Eamonn Melaugh, Eamonn McCann, Fionnbarra Ó Dochartaigh (Finbar O'Doherty), J.J. O’Hara (brother of hunger striker Patsy O'Hara), Labour activist Gerry Mallet amongst others.
Neil O’Donnell and Roddy O’Carlin were jailed for a month for refusal to keep the peace.
Immediately afterwards Eamonn Melaugh telephoned the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and invited them to organise a march in Derry.
[2] Together with NICRA, they organised the 5 October 1968 civil rights demonstration in Derry, whose banning and violent suppression by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was one of the catalysts of the so-called 'Troubles'.