Comparing Ireland to the US Civil Rights Movement is facile
In the US, the Southern blacks were fighting for a right that had already been granted to the rest of America
There was never any question that the southern administrations would offer armed resistance to those demands.
In Ireland, the protests had already been met with violence from the Loyalists which had been backed by the 'forced of law ang order' and ignored by Britain.
Rightly or wrongly, the Catholics decided that peaceful persuasion was not going to work - especially as the Loyalists had already introduced violence into the equation.
It needs to be remembered that those who fought remembered tat the British state had executed the leaders of 1916 and Independence (of a sort) was only finally won by taking up arms.
It is nonsense to claim that Britain was there to keep the peace - the collusion with the Loyalists makes it quite clear which horse they had decided to back
Whatever your take on the violence (from all sides), that is what brought the sides to the conference table and nobody disputes that fact
It is often forgotten that there was another war of independence against British rule 20-odd years earlier that also involved violence and terrorism, but I doubt if those choosing to condemn outright what happened in Ireland would take the same stance on what happened elsewhere in the 1940s
In the end, all of these occurences are directly traceable back to The British Empire
Jim Carroll