Little did we know in 1966 that as we planned for a new tomorrow, events would soon occur that would change the face of Northern Ireland and plunge the province into almost thirty years of civil unrest and violence and back into its dark past. To understand why this should occur the reader may need some background knowledge of Irish history. Many excellent books have been written on the subject, yet my introduction to the history of Ireland was from a small book by Randall Clarke, a history teacher at Methodist College Belfast which I attended from 1944 to 1949. It was an excellent little book for a fifteen-year-old. First of all, unlike my books on European and American history it was not too lengthy, and second, the chronology of events was recorded in a way that made remembering them easy. To have these facts brought to life by no less than the author himself left a deep imprint on me.

For readers not familiar with the history of Ireland the following brief sketch is barely adequate, but I hope it will shed some light on the political and religious circumstances prevalent throughout the making of the plan for Londonderry. It is difficult for visitors to Ireland to understand the schism between those Irish who regard Northern Ireland as an integral part of the UK and those who regard it as a natural part of the Republic of Ireland.