Or at least it is by some accounts. A precise start to the violence of the 1960s and 1970s that characterized Northern Ireland in the minds of many, indeed even characterized, unfairly, Ireland itself in this period, is hard to define.
Ireland had never accommodated itself to English rule at any point, but dating back to the Middle Ages various English kingdoms and then the Kingdom of England itself had claimed sovereignty over parts or all of Ireland. For many decades, even centuries, the claim was fairly tenuous as a rule, but starting with the Norman conquest of England in 1066 it became inevitable that the conquering spirit of the barely Francoized Norsemen would lead them on to Ireland. That path had already been partially laid by the Saxons already and the Normans were on a global path of expansion that would lead them on to install themselves over Sicily. In that context, Ireland couldn't be avoided.
The Normans landed in Ireland as early as 1169, or perhaps we should say as late as that, given that this was a century after their conquest of England. This was followed by landings in 1170 and 1171, which ultimately lead to the English King Henry landing that year in an effort to establish his own Anglo Norman sovereignty but also to put a lid on Norman freebooters. He came and went but came back and in 1175 was self declared the overlord of Ireland, a position that was intended to put himself in loose control of the various Irish kingdoms but to leave them Irish. This soon failed and in 1177 he declared his son John Lackland the Lord of Ireland and simply co-opted the ongoing Norman invasion. This would bring to an end the era of independent Irish kingdoms. The fact that there were, of course, multiple Irish kingdoms doomed the Irish in and of itself, but frankly Norman military capabilities were so advanced at the time that there was really no hope for Irish resistance.
This isn't intended to be a history of Ireland, so we'll simply leap forward and note that the United Kingdom ruled Ireland, over Irish objection, until 1922. The Irish rebelled from time to time, particularly after the English crown separated the Church from Rome and then took it into Protestantism. This became particularly pronounced after Cromwell became the English Lord Protector and English law became increasingly hostile to Catholicism. The Irish became impoverished serfs in their own land and constantly sought to free themselves from England. By the 19th Century, as the English began to reform their views, slowly at first, and then rapidly later on, things were perhaps so fixed in attitude that efforts towards Home Rule were insufficient to keep a significant minority of Irish from seeking an armed separation from the United Kingdom which came in the form of the Anglo Irish War.
The dates for the Anglo Irish War itself are debated, but a person can realistically date it to the
Easter Rebellion of 1916. The rebellion was a failure and indeed rejected by the Irish, but the English overreaction to it was sufficiently harsh that a follow up, more thought out, guerrilla, and indeed terroristic, war that started in 1919 had somewhat broader support.
Still, the mixed views on England were strong enough that the compromise reached with the United Kingdom not only left Ireland as a dominion of the United Kingdom, a status that at the time meant that the United Kingdom retained foreign policy decisions to some degree over a separated Ireland, but it also allowed Northern Ireland to opt out of the Irish Free State, a position bitterly opposed by Irish Republicans and which lead to the Irish Civil War. Northern Ireland had been a problem in the context of Irish independence for many years as its population was majority Scots and Presbyterian. Predictably, Northern Ireland voted to opt out of the Irish Free State.
This lead to the Irish Civil War, as noted, and following that lead to a bizarre situation in which the Irish Republic basically did not recognize Ulster as legitimately separate from it but, at the same time, really did nothing about it. Ethnic Irish in Ulster stewed about the situation but by and large accommodated themselves to it.
In 1960s a non violent civil rights movement seeking to improve the position of minority Catholics in Ulster commenced. It was not well received in all quarters. Irish nationalist reacted with protests nad parades in 1966 and actually dynamited an English monument in that year in spite of being quite weak. This was responded to by the formation of Ulster unionist movements that saw the republican challenge as being stronger than it really was. An organization formed calling itself the Ulster Volunteer Force, recalling similar paramilitary forces from the pre World War One Ulster and soon Ulster unionist terrorist attacked the homes of Catholic residents.
This lead to civil rights protests that occurred into 1968. These were met with Unionist violence.
On this day in 1968, once such event occurred. The Northern Irish government banned an anticipated civil rights protest but it occurred anyhow. The government sent the Royal Irish Constabulary to confront the marchers and the RUC policemen met them with violence. The entire thing was filmed and shown on television, sparking Catholic disgust and outrage. Two days of rioting ensued pitting Irish nationalist against the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Thirty years of violence and the rise of the Provisional Irish Republican Army would follow.
