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#OnThisDay 17th of April 1966, a huge demonstration took place in West Belfast to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.
https://www.leftarchive.ie/calendar/on-this-day/04/17/#event-6361
On This Day, 17th April
Irish Left Archive
![A screenshot from the Irish Left Archive website, with text reading: On the 17th of April 1966, a huge demonstration took place in West Belfast to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.
[O]n 17 April, one of the biggest parades ever witnessed on the Falls took place. Paisley announced he would hold a counter-march from the Shankill to the Cenotaph and the Ulster Hall, this would pass close to where the republican parade was to start. As a result the Stormont government banned a train carrying republican supporters from Dublin, set up stringent border checks on vehicles and further increased the strict security measures placed upon the parade on the Falls Road. … Up to fifty thousand spectators watched, many waving Tricolours, as twenty thousand people paraded to Casement Park. Among those who took part were the Belfast Trades Council, a number of trade unions, the old IRA, the Wolfe Tone Clubs, the Irish National Foresters and the GAA. A small bomb exploded in a telephone box near the Milltown Cemetery, but otherwise the day passed off peacefully.
Jarman, N. and Bryan, D., 1997. From Riots to Rights: Nationalist Parades in the North of Ireland. Coleraine: Centre for the Study of Conflict, University of Ulster.
The United Irishman report the following month includes the text of the oration at Casement Park by Seamus Costello:](https://posts.leftarchive.ie/attachments/thumbnails/b09b33ae800120dac87b39b2801b0fa8a7e292ccb341023981baee08a6ec4b4a/belfast.jpeg)