Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
An Irish flag set Belfast alight
The tricolour in the window
The flag hung in the Lower Falls, in West Belfast, the most competitive of the city's four Westminster seats because it contains the heavily Catholic Falls Road. Liam McMillan, a former IRA man from the border campaign, was standing there as an independent Republican, and he had hung a big Irish tricolour in his office window. The Flags and Emblems Act of 1954 let the RUC take down any flag likely to provoke a breach of the peace, and it was aimed squarely at the Irish flag. In Catholic areas, though, the police usually left it alone.
Paisley forces police action
Ian Paisley was horrified. He called a rally and declared that he did not accept that any part of Ulster was Republican. Under that pressure the RUC changed course, and on 28 September heavily armed constables smashed down the office door and carried the flag out through a crowd of 2,000 who jeered and threw stones.
Riot and aftermath
Thousands of people threw stones and petrol bombs, and a trolley bus was set on fire. Hundreds of RUC men with batons, backed by armoured cars and water cannons, physically cleared the Falls Road. Fifty people ended up in hospital, along with 18 constables. A crowd even gathered outside the British Embassy in Dublin and had to be held back by Irish police.
British papers noticed Northern Ireland for the first time since the war, and the Times wrote of a sickening familiarity. Paisley came out of it with his name in the headlines. When the Unionist candidate Jim Kilfedder won West Belfast two weeks later, his speech thanked Paisley for his support.
Why were flags legally unequal in Ulster?
The Flags and Emblems (Display) Act of 1954 made it an offence to interfere with the display of the Union flag. It also gave police power to remove any other flag if they judged it likely to cause a breach of the peace. In practice that meant the Irish tricolour was the flag that could be taken down. The act stayed on the books until it was repealed in 1987.
What do the tricolour's colors stand for?
The green, white, and orange flag was presented to the public in 1848 by the Young Irelander Thomas Francis Meagher. Green stood for the Gaelic and Catholic tradition and orange for the followers of William of Orange. The white band between them stood for a lasting truce between the two traditions. It became the flag of the Irish Free State and later the Republic of Ireland.
Who held West Belfast after the riots?
Jim Kilfedder held the seat only until the general election of March 1966. Gerry Fitt of Republican Labour won it that year and kept it until 1983. Fitt later helped found the Social Democratic and Labour Party in 1970. Northern Ireland sent just 12 MPs to Westminster in that era, so one seat changing hands stood out.
More from The Rest Is History
