Gerry Fitt

19 results

Parliament Buildings in Stormont, Belfast. Photograph: Peter Morrison/PA Wire
A new Ireland of equals needs to be more than a slogan

When the last detainees were released from Long Kesh in 1975, then SDLP leader Gerry Fitt said it would be a long time before the Catholic community i(...)

Former SDLP leader Margaret Richie described the House of Lords in 2012 as an ‘anachronistic institution’. Photograph: Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker
Ex-SDLP MP unapologetic about House of Lords elevation

Former SDLP leader and now newly elevated member of the House of Lords Margaret Ritchie is sitting on the reputed grave of St Patrick in Downpatrick m(...)

It wasn’t until the 1980s that Gerry Adams (above) and Martin McGuinness began driving forward the policy of the Armalite and the ballot box. Photograph: Pat Langan
Political deadlock: NI system is same as that which agreed 1994 ceasefire

The difference between the politics of a quarter of a century and a half a century ago in Northern Ireland is that in 1969, there was a single-party u(...)

Lyra McKee's investigation into children who went missing during the Troubles – was due to have been published in 2020. Photograph: Jess Lowe/EPA
Lyra McKee and her investigation into the mysterious murder of a unionist MP in 1981

Lyra McKee was murdered by the New IRA in Derry in April 2019. A 29-year-old writer and journalist, she was watching a riot in the city’s Creggan es(...)

‘I have never understood people who love someone but do not like them at the same time.’
In a Word. . . Yesterday

Yesterday, all our Troubles seemed so far away. Then it looked as though they were here to stay. It came so suddenly. I won’t ever forget October 5t(...)

The Derry Civil Rights march moving off from Waterside railway station, heading towards Duke street. Leading the marchers are Eddie McAteer, the Nationalist leader, Gerry Fitt, Republican Labour MP, and Ivan Cooper, chairman of the Derry branch of the Labour Party.
Today, 50 years ago, the Troubles began

As a child, Caitriona Walsh’s biggest fear was going through the Bogside. Now a 16-year-old student at St Mary’s College in Derry, she remembers how (...)

County Inspector William Meharg warning the demonstrators on the Derry civil rights march on October 5th, 1968, that any attempt to march along the prohibited route was illegal and would be resisted. Photograph: The Irish Times
‘No one imagined the violence that would follow’: Eamonn McCann on Derry in 1968

Eamonn McCann walked through Derry’s Bogside the morning after October 5th, 1968, when a civil rights march heading for the city centre had been stopp(...)

Former MP for Stormount Austin Currie in Kinnard Park, Caledon, where in 1968 his housing protest there helped instigate the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. Photograph: Enda O’Dowd
How Austin Currie’s 1968 housing protest ignited NI’s civil rights movement

On the evening of June 20th, 1968, Austin Currie sent a letter of thanks to Mrs McKenna, of Kinnard Park, Caledon. “I think today we have made histor(...)

Gerry Fitt enjoyed sitting on the terrace during summer evenings waving great glasses of gin and tonic at the passing boats and crying “It’s free! It’s all free”. Photograph: Jimmy McCormack
Peers and beers, MPs and G&Ts: Westminster’s drinking habits

Catching the barman’s eye as we lifted ourselves on to a couple of stools in the Lords Bar, I asked for a gin and tonic and the baroness ordered a pin(...)

Undated picture of Ian Paisley.
Where did Theresa May’s new friends, the DUP, come from?

For more than three decades, the Democratic Unionist Party, now poised to be Theresa May’s “little helper” in government was a party of protest for ma(...)

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