Free Derry was a self-declared autonomous Irish nationalist area of Derry, Northern Ireland that existed between 1969 and 1972 during the Troubles. It emerged during the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, which sought to end discrimination against the Irish Catholic/nationalist minority by the Protestant/unionist government. The civil rights movement highlighted the sectarianism and police brutality of the overwhelmingly Protestant police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).
"Free Derry Corner" at the corner of Lecky Road and Fahan Street in the Bogside. The slogan was first painted in January 1969 after an unauthorised midnight incursion by RUC men into the Bogside.
The Guildhall, where members of the Derry Housing Action Committee disrupted meetings of Londonderry Corporation in 1968
Westland Street, in the Bogside. The headquarters of the Derry Citizens Defence Association were at number 10.
The Bloody Sunday memorial in Rossville Street. All of the dead belonged to Free Derry.
The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "irregular war" or "low-level war". The conflict began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.
The Battle of the Boyne (12 July 1690) by Jan van Huchtenburg
The Ulster Covenant was issued in protest against the Third Home Rule Bill in September 1912.
Sir James Craig, 1st Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, who said, "All I boast is that we are a Protestant Parliament and Protestant State"
A monument to Northern Ireland's first civil rights march
