All events · Empires Unmade
Northern Ireland: The Displacement of 1969-1972 and Internment
1969–1975 · Europe & Northern Eurasia
Displacement
Territory Seized
Mass Killing
Displaced
55,000
Estimates of 45,000-60,000 people forced from their homes between 1969 and 1973, most in Belfast, drawn from the work of historians Sean Connolly and Gillian McIntosh and from contemporary Community Relations Commission and Northern Ireland Housing Executive surveys; the figure is frequently described as the largest forced movement of civilians in western Europe since 1945. A survey by the Community Relations Commission found some 2,100 families displaced in Belfast in the three weeks after August 1971 alone. Roughly 1,900 people were interned without trial under Operation Demetrius and its successors between August 1971 and December 1975.
Share of the population affected
3.6%
of the population of Northern Ireland, 1971
Killed
1,000–1,400
conflict deaths incl. combatants
Open on the interactive map →
What happened
The disturbances of August 1969 in Belfast and Derry, in which streets were burned in the Falls and Ardoyne areas and British troops were deployed, began a sustained movement of families out of mixed and minority districts; historians estimate 45,000-60,000 people were displaced between 1969 and 1973, with thousands crossing temporarily to camps in the Republic. The Scarman Tribunal, reporting in 1972, examined the 1969 violence and its social costs, including intimidation and the displacement of persons. From August 1971 the government introduced internment without trial under Operation Demetrius, detaining some 1,900 people over four years, overwhelmingly from the Catholic and nationalist community; fourteen detainees were subjected to the 'five techniques' of interrogation. In Ireland v. the United Kingdom (1978) the European Court of Human Rights held that these techniques amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment in breach of Article 3, reversing the Commission's finding of torture; Ireland's 2014 request to revise the judgment to a finding of torture was refused in 2018. Characterisations of the period remain politically contested in Northern Ireland.
Parties
Sectarian intimidation, arson and paramilitary and mob attack drove Catholic and Protestant families out of mixed districts in Belfast and Derry, while the United Kingdom interned suspects without trial from 1971
Disputed
How the displacement should be characterised and apportioned between communities — unionist and nationalist accounts differ over the balance of Catholic and Protestant families forced out and over responsibility — and whether the interrogation of internees constituted torture, as Ireland argued and the European Commission of Human Rights found, or inhuman and degrading treatment, as the Court held in 1978 and reaffirmed in 2018.
The denominator
The 1971 census counted 1,536,065 people, roughly a third of them Catholic. Displacement was overwhelmingly concentrated in Belfast, whose population was about 362,000 at the same census, and in Derry.
Against Belfast's population rather than Northern Ireland's, the displacement of 1969-72 was on the order of one household in ten, several times what the province-wide ratio shows; it is often described as the largest forced movement in western Europe since 1945.
Where the baseline comes from
On the death toll
Deaths for 1969-1975 as recorded in the CAIN and Sutton indexes of Troubles-related deaths, covering paramilitaries, security forces and civilians; the range reflects differences over how deaths late in 1975 and those with disputed causes are classified. The Troubles as a whole caused about 3,500 deaths to 1998.
Documented forms of violence
Destruction of PropertyArbitrary DetentionTortureMass Killing
The Scarman Tribunal documented the burnings and intimidation of 1969 and the European Court of Human Rights the treatment of internees; deaths are catalogued in the CAIN index.
Formal findings
- European Court of Human Rights (1978) — Ireland v. the United Kingdom (1978): the 'five techniques' used on internees breached Article 3 as inhuman and degrading treatment; the Court declined to characterise them as torture and in 2018 refused Ireland's request to revise the judgment — source
- Tribunal of Inquiry into Violence and Civil Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969 (Scarman Tribunal) (1972) — 1972 report examining the August 1969 disturbances, including intimidation, damage to property and displacement of persons — source
Movements mapped
- Refugees crossing to camps in the Republic of Ireland, August 1969
Countries touched, on present-day borders
United Kingdom, Ireland
Sources