The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace

by Tim Pat Coogan

There was nothing in that remit about also making recommendations as to the site or sites of any proposed new educational institutions. However, this is what the committee did. Its recommendation, Coleraine, in the east, was accepted by the Government. Derry, which had hoped to be the beneficiary of any extension of university facilities, was outraged. Firstly, it already had a university college, Magee, a constituent college of Queen’s University, Belfast. Being the only university unit outside Belfast, Magee had appeared the logical base for expansion. Secondly, Coleraine only had a population of 12, 000, less than a quarter of Derry’s 54, 000. Thirdly, and the third was more than equal to the first, there had not been a single Catholic on the committee. The resultant protest movement was unprecedented. The same sort of liberal Unionist sentiment which had prompted the suggestion that Catholics be admitted to the party surfaced and made common cause with the Catholics of Derry and with the opposition parties at Stormont. A University for Derry Campaign was founded, under the chairmanship of a young Derry schoolteacher, John Hume, who had built a reputation for himself through his pioneering work in establishing the Credit Union movement throughout Ireland. On 18 February 1965 the city of Derry virtually closed down; shops, schools, businesses of all kinds. A motorised cavalcade containing 1, 500 vehicles drove the ninety miles to Stormont to protest the Coleraine decisio...