Bridget Bond

Civil Rights Activist

‘Bridget has been described as an extraordinary ordinary woman who could relate to anyone and to whom anyone could relate to. She had the ability to engage with everyone that needed her help or needed her to speak on their behalf.’

Born in Derry in 1925, Bridget Bond (nee McMenamin) left school at 15 and found work in Tillie and Henderson's shirt factory. She later married Johnny Bond and the couple had four sons together, but the young Catholic family struggled to find safe, liveable accommodation in 1960s Derry. This was because Northern Ireland at this time saw ‘systemic discrimination in housing and jobs’ and in Derry specifically ‘the voting districts had been gerrymandered so badly that it was controlled politically by [Protestant] loyalists for 50 years’ despite having a two-thirds Catholic majority population.

Inspired by the civil rights movement in America, ‘a new generation of politically and socially conscious young Catholic nationalists’ in Northern Ireland began to protest this discrimination. In early 1968, the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC) was founded to peacefully protest housing conditions and provisions. Bridget, who had struggled with poor health all her life only to discover that she had a hole in her heart, quickly became an active member when she had to postpone multiple serious operations due to her poor living conditions. She took an active part in pickets and sit-ins. It was DHAC who asked the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) to organise a civil rights march in Derry – which they did for 5 October of that year. This march became notorious when the RUC baton-charged the peaceful protestors in scenes that were seen around the world. The conditions in Northern Ireland became headline news worldwide.

‘I’ll be staying here until I get satisfaction.’

By December 1968, Bridget - now the treasurer of DHAC – joined fourteen others in a squat at Derry Guildhall demanding better housing conditions. She found herself back there at the end of the month calling to be rehoused, in a squat that would last into 1969. After two weeks, Bridget and her family were offered temporary accommodation, but like the others in the Guildhall, she remained until February when all protesting families were rehoused.

Shortly after this, Bridget became a member of NICRA (eventually acting as secretary and then chairwoman of the Derry branch) and in March of 1970, she and two others travelled to the United States on a three-week fundraising tour. In 1971, when 340+ people from Catholic and nationalist backgrounds were arrested and incarcerated without trial, Bridget became an active and vocal campaigner against internment. On 30 January 1972, she headed an anti-interment rally organised by NICRA which came to an end when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians, killing 14. The day came to be known as Bloody Sunday. A few months later, it was Bridget who was chosen to unveil a memorial to the victims.

She continued to campaign on behalf of the Bloody Sunday victims in the years that followed, but ill health forced her to take a step back, and in 1982 she resigned from her role in NICRA. She died in 1990.

Bridget is still remembered today as a ‘key organiser of the series of demonstrations, squattings and occupations of public buildings which first focused wide attention on housing discrimination in the North’ and her personal papers lie in the Museum of the Troubles in Derry.

Sources:

‘Bridget Bond,’ online at: https://derrysmarttour.com/locationdetails/BridgetBond [accessed 7 July 2022].

Roos, Dave, ‘How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland,’ online at: https://www.history.com/news/the-troubles-northern-ireland#:~:text=A%201960s%20Civil%20Rights%20Movement%20Modeled%20on%20the%20US&text=In%20the%20city%20of%20Derry,%5D%20loyalists%20for%2050%20years.%E2%80%9D [accessed 7 July 2022].

Belfast Telegraph, 10 Dec. 1968.

Belfast Telegraph, 1 Jan. 1969.

Belfast Telegraph, 1 Feb. 1969.

Belfast Telegraph, 14 Mar. 1970.

Sunday Tribune, 4 Feb. 1990.

‘Brigid Bond,’ on A Century of Women, online at: https://www.acenturyofwomen.com/brigid-bond/ [accessed 8 June 2022].