Both were involved in the Homeless Citizens League, an organisation founded after Catholic women occupied disused social housing.
This meant that in local council elections (as in Great Britain), ratepayers and their spouses, whether renting or owning the property, could vote.
The result was that many towns and cities with a Catholic majority, even a substantial one, were Unionist-controlled: examples included Derry, Armagh, Dungannon, and Enniskillen.
Bernadette Devlin (who became a civil rights activist) described a festival atmosphere which turned "uglier" when the police stopped the march from entering Dungannon, where a counter-demonstration had been called by the Paisleyites.
[5] According to Devlin, many of the initial organisers soon left after efforts to wind down the movement failed; those who remained "sat down in big circles all over the road and sang rebel songs till midnight".
Derry was alive.The march was characterised by non-sectarian civil-rights demands, including an end to gerrymandering and discrimination in housing and the right to vote.
[11] The birthdate of the civil-rights movement is considered to be 5 October; images of police brutality were broadcast worldwide, and much of Northern Ireland's population was horrified.
In Derry, the period following 5 October was one in which established political forces and prominent individuals in Catholic areas tried to harness and control the movement's energy.
At this point, Derry moderates emerged and announced a meeting attended by "local professionals, business people, trade unionists and clergy"[12] from the Catholic community.
This led to the formation of the Derry Citizens Action Committee (DCAC), which effectively (if temporarily) assumed leadership of the movement.
Its first action, a mass sit-down in Derry's Guildhall Square (home of the Derry Corporation), focused on housing and the following demands: The DCAC organised a series of actions, many of which defied Craig's ban on protests and demonstrated "its ability to mount a peaceful protest and maintain discipline over its followers".
[19][page needed] O'Neill made a television address appealing to the civil-rights movement to "give him time" to introduce reforms.
Bernadette Devlin, leader of the People's Democracy (PD) and a foremost figure in the civil-rights movement, described her return to QUB after the Derry march: I went up to Belfast thinking I had changed, and I found that everyone had.
[20]On 9 October, Devlin and others organised a protest march to Belfast City Hall against police brutality: "2,000 people turned up spontaneously.
PD actions in late 1968 included protests, open-air meetings, sit-downs and the occupation of the Northern Ireland Parliament on 24 October.
The purpose of the march was described by one activist as "pushing a structure…towards a point where its internal proceedings would cause a snapping and breaking to begin",[24] while Devlin described it as an attempt to "pull the carpet off the floor to show the dirt that was underneath".
Following a night of rioting, RUC men entered the Bogside (a Catholic ghetto), wrecked a number of houses and attacked several people.
It also created a context in which older Republican veterans could emerge as prominent figures within the movement; for example, Sean Keenan (later important to the Derry Provisional IRA) was involved in pushing for defensive patrols and barricades.
The government introduced more-repressive legislation (specifically banning civil-disobedience tactics such as sit-ins), which gave the movement something else to resist.
[27] In mid-1969 Prime Minister Terence O'Neill resigned and was replaced by James Chichester-Clark, who announced the introduction of "one man, one vote"; the civil-rights movement had achieved its key demand.
The next development during this period was the "Battle of the Bogside", in which confrontation with the police would reach a peak in Derry's most militant Catholic ghetto.
In a leaflet he circulated shortly before the event, McCann notes that despite the civil-rights movement's non-sectarian intentions: In Derry we have finished up participating in the "Defence Association" locking ourselves inside the Catholic area.
Some have argued that the Bogsiders were provoked by loyalists,[29][page needed] while others suggest that Catholic youths stoned the Apprentice Boys.
What followed was a 50-hour confrontation, in which the entire population of the Bogside was mobilised: women and children made and distributed petrol bombs while others, stationed on tower block roofs, kept the police at bay with them.
In fifty hours we brought a government to its knees, and we gave back to a downtrodden people their pride and the strength of their convictions.
"[31]During the following month, "Free Derry" (as it became known) "was surrounded by barricades... and was administered by the DCDA, in constant negotiation with local British Army commanders.
[34][page needed] The establishment of "free" areas in Belfast and Derry was, in many ways, the final phase of the civil-rights movement.
In early 1970 it undertook its first actions (including the armed defence of St. Mathew's church in the Short Strand, which loyalists were attempting to burn).
On 30 January 1972, soldiers from 1 PARA shot into a peaceful civil rights demonstration, killing 14 civilians in what became known as "Bloody Sunday".
The Provisional IRA emerged as the dominant force within the movement, and Irish nationalism became the foremost political position for those seeking radical social change.