It is no exaggeration to say that the next civil rights march made history, for the violence which accompanied it transformed Northern Ireland politics. The march, in the city of Londonderry on 5 October 1968, was organised by a left-wing group which was hopeful of provoking the authorities into confrontation. That strategy worked. First William Craig, O’Neill’s particularly hardline Minister for Home Affairs, banned the march, a move which swelled the numbers attending it. Then the RUC spectacularly overreacted, using water cannon and batons on an obviously peaceful group of marchers.
