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1. Falls Road Wall Mural Tour
2. Milltown Cemetery Tour
3. The Ballymurphy Story - From Guerilla War to Government
4. United Irishmen Tour

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At Coiste, we believe in providing the most professional and informative tours, but most of all we appreciate your custom. That is why we offer a complimentary glass of guinness at the end of our Falls Road Walking Tour.

 

The History of Irish Republicanism

Following the enforced partition of Ireland by the British Government in 1921 the newly elected Unionist Government in the Six Counties set about establishing a form of religious apartheid,'a protestant parliament for a protestant people', as one former Unionist prime minister described it.  In the decades between 1921 and 1969, Catholics and Nationalists bore the brunt of institutionalised discrimination and state repression.  No opposition to Unionist rule was tolerated.

By the 1960s the Northern Ireland Civil Rights association was formed, and began to campaign peacefully for basic civil rights - one person one vote and an end to discrimination in housing and employment.  That peaceful campaign was met with violence by the Unionist regime; demonstrators were attacked with batons, tear gas and eventually live bullets.  Whipped into a frenzy of sectarian hatred and fear, loyalist mobs supported by the police force (RUC and B Specials) swept into Nationalist districts throughout Belfast on the night of the 15th August.  Hundreds of Nationalist homes and businesses were attacked and destroyed leaving thousands of Nationalists homeless. That evening Gerard Mc Auley, just 15 years of age, was shot and killed by Loyalists.  Later Patrick Rooney just 9 years of age was shot and killed by the RUC.  Trooper Mc Cabe who was on home leave at the time from his regiment in the British Army was also shot and killed by the RUC in the Divis Street area.

Before 1969 the IRA was a relatively small organisation, made up for most part of older men and women who had previously fought military campaigns against British rule in Ireland.  After the suppression of the civil rights movement and the pogroms, hundreds of men and women joined the ranks of the IRA.  The British Government ordered British troops onto the streets again and the perennial struggle between the British and Irish Republicans began again.