CATHOLICS DIDN’T WANT war. They had peacefully protested for decades to try to gain fair political representation and equal treatment in Northern Ireland. They had written letters, formed civil rights associations, and demonstrated in the street. They had held open-air meetings, sit-ins, and at one point in 1968 occupied Northern Ireland’s parliament in Belfast. In January 1969, they had organized a “Long March” from Belfast to Derry modeled on the march from Selma to Montgomery in the United States. But Protestants, through it all, had shown no interest in compromise. Nothing changed.
