Making Sense of the Troubles: The Story of the Conflict in Northern Ireland

by David McKittrick

The conference precipitated an important personnel change at the highest level of Northern Ireland politics. Gerry Fitt, leader of the SDLP since its formation in 1970, believed his party was wrong in its decision to boycott the conference and resigned from it. More generally he complained that the SDLP was becoming less socialist and too nationalist. The party’s other most prominent socialist, Paddy Devlin, had already gone, citing similar reasons. Fitt and Devlin had been among Northern Ireland’s best-known political personalities since the 1960s, providing much of the SDLP’s early socialist character. Devlin had once declared, in a statement which also reflected Fitt’s approach: ‘I am basically a trade unionist and a socialist. I am not a Catholic or an Irish nationalist.’ Both disapproved of the SDLP’s increasing commitment to a stronger Irish dimension and its move away from the idea of powersharing.