Catalogue Number
NMLH.2025.8
Object Name
badge
Title
Troops out now
Place
Ireland, Northern Ireland
Events
Northern Irish Civil Rights Movement 1960s, Troubles
Description
A round green badge with Ireland in black, outlined with gold. Great Britain is depicted as a riot police officer or soldier in a riot hemet, holding a riot shield and a truncheon raised to hit Ireland. Gold lettering beneath says 'Troops out now'.
This badge is protesting against military brutality in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a period of military occupation of Northern Ireland beginning in the late 1960s. During the 1960s, Catholic Nationalists (who identify as Irish) in Northern Ireland who had been systematically discriminated against by the ruling Protestant Unionist (who identify as British) minority began campaigning for civil rights. They demanded an end to anti-Catholic discrimination in hiring, housing allocation, gerrymandering election boundaries to ensure Unionist (pro-UK) rule, reforming the 90% Protestant RUC police, a vote for every adult rather than only homeowners which privileged wealthier Protestant areas, and repealing the Special Powers Act that was used to repress nationalist (pro-Irish) groups, newspapers and parades.
In response to the civil rights movement, loyalists (pro-UK) led by fundamentalist preacher Rev. Ian Paisley, founded a paramilitary organisation, the UVF which attacked Catholic civilians, petrol bombing Catholic homes in majority Protestant areas and attacking civil rights marches. This paramilitary violence, and anti-RUC riots by nationalists protesting the lack of protection from loyalists led to the British army being deployed in August 1969 to restore order. While initially welcomed by nationalists, mass human rights violations like internment of Catholic men without trial for suspected IRA membership, torture of suspected IRA members, and mass murder of Catholic civilians by soldiers including the Ballymurphy massacre and Bloody Sunday led to a strong nationalist opposition to military presence. A majority of the British army personnel posted in Northern Ireland left in the 2000s following the cease fire and tentative peace that accompanied the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Many military crimes against civilians were initially excused by the British state during the Troubles by claiming the dead were paramilitaries, and attempts to seek justice for victims took decades, with some cases still ongoing at the time of writing in 2025.
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