The riots marked the start of 30 years of violent conflict <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>The battle of the Bogside only ended\u00a0when British troops marched into\u00a0Waterloo Place in the city centre and\u00a0stretched out concertina barbed wire\u00a0and barricades across the roads and\u00a0replaced the exhausted RUC at the front\u00a0lines. Army commanders agreed not to\u00a0try to enter the Bogside, and \u2018Free\u00a0Derry\u2019, as it was dubbed, was administered for the following two months by a\u00a0broad-based local defence association. The\u00a0British government now forced the unionist\u00a0government at Stormont to implement reforms\u00a0aimed at conciliating the Catholic and nationalist minority that made up one-third of the\u00a0North\u2019s population, including disarming the\u00a0police force. For many on the left, Free Derry represented a great victory of popular mobilisation over the forces of repression, and it received large-scale and sympathetic media coverage across Europe and North America.<\/p>\n
But the rioting in the Bogside had also triggered a dangerous escalation. No one had died in Derry, but in Belfast there was widespread sectarian rioting and battles with the police. Shooting broke out and seven people were shot dead on 14 and 15 August. A day after the soldiers were deployed to Derry, they were sent on to the streets of Belfast. They would remain there for more than three decades.<\/p>\n
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- Why we should remember the Amnesty Act of 1872<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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The battle of the Bogside was an important catalyst for change, triggering a determined British government intervention that ended the unionist monopoly on power. But it also marked the beginning of 30 years of violent conflict that would claim the lives of more than 3,600 people and bring untold suffering.<\/p>\n
It was only finally brought to an end by the Good Friday Agreement<\/a> of 1998,\u00a0a delicate compromise between unionists and nationalists and the British and Irish governments. It is a measure of\u00a0the potential for renewed political\u00a0tensions in Northern Ireland that this\u00a0agreement is now at the centre of\u00a0debate on the future relationship\u00a0between the United Kingdom and\u00a0the European Union.<\/p>\n