Northern Ireland

Powerful Irish News images capture week the Troubles began

Images carried in the Irish News from August 1969
Images carried in the Irish News from August 1969 Images carried in the Irish News from August 1969

THESE are the powerful images which Irish News readers woke up to 50 years ago this week.

As photographers captured the dramatic events in Derry and Belfast, little did they realise then that it marked the start of the Troubles and similar scenes would be repeated over the course of four decades.

Families fled neighbourhoods which had been their home for generations, lifelong friends became strangers, separated within the same city as s-ocalled `peace walls' proliferated.

The British soldiers who rolled in to Northern Ireland in 1969 would remain until 2007, with Operation Banner to become the longest continuous deployment in British military history.

But that was all in the future. On this day in history, a shocked population was just trying to make sense of the night before.

Images from The Irish News from August 1969
Images from The Irish News from August 1969 Images from The Irish News from August 1969
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics.
1969 Irish News Pics. 1969 Irish News Pics.