PRESS RELEASE: Civil Rights’ Website Launch
Civil Rights’ Website Launch - www.nicivilrights.org
The recent local launch by civil rights veterans of their 1968 40th anniversary commemorative website was attended by the newly-elected Mayor of Derry, Cllor. Gerard Diver and a former mayor, Helen Quigley, in addition to past residents of Springtown Camp, as well as several 1960s’ activists, including the former MP for Mid-Derry, Ivan Cooper. The site, located at www.nicivilrights.org has attracted a fair degree of media attention and as a result a major increase in the number of “hits” has been recorded.
The website includes a video on the early struggle for civil rights and the details of the full commemorative programme of events across the North and beyond. Of particular local interest will be obituaries on prominent civil rights figures, which are being added to on a regular basis. Currently these include tributes to the late ‘Vinny’ Coyle, who was in charge of over 700 march stewards, Cathy Harkin who founded Derry’s Women’s Aid, the radical author John McGuffin and the late Mary Ellen O’Doherty who died in her 100thyear last June, who was often referred to as the “Mother of the Civil Rights”.
The local commemoration committee is appealing not only for other obituaries but also personal memories, photographs and other memorabilia of that dramatic era which led to major reforms across the Six Counties. It is feared that a great deal of historic material may be lost forever if such is not collected and properly recorded during this 40th anniversary year.
The commemoration committee, which meets every Thursday evening at 8PM, can be contacted on 028-71-286359 or by e-mail at
rights.civil@googlemail.com
'So venceremos, beidh bua againn eigin lá eigin. Sealadaigh abú.'
--Bobby Sands