People’s Democracy

People's Democracy was a socialist organisation founded in Belfast in 1968 and closely associated with the Northern Ireland civil rights movement. HN68 'Sean Lynch' HN68 ‘Sean Lynch’ HN68 ‘Sean Lynch’ was the cover name used by a former Special Demonstration Squad undercover officer deployed between 1968 and 1974 into groups related to political violence in Northern Ireland. He held a managerial position as second-in-command of the SDS between 1981 and 1983 and retired from the Metropolitan Police in 1993. He is dead. Full page: HN68 ‘Sean Lynch’  was among those who reported on the organisation.

Members included Bernadette Devlin and Eamon McCann, who are mentioned in SDS reporting on the group's activities in London. Most of the reports on the organisation are connected to umbrella groups it was affiliated to.

The most comprehensive history of the organisation is contained in Phd thesis by Matthew Collins (2018):

It was born in the dormitories and halls of Queen’s University, exploding onto the streets of Belfast in 1968 through a series of marches and sit down protests, before entering the electoral field the following year wherein it began to cohere into a more rounded political party with its own program and structure, and later going on to have a significant influence over a wide range of campaigns and social issues, including the mass resistance to internment and the removal of rights for prisoners, through to the intense period of political activity surrounding the hunger strikes. 

Source: Collins, M, The History of the People’s Democracy, unpublished PhD thesis, Ulster University, 2018. Matthew Collins, The History of the People’s Democracy, University of Ulster, Collins, M., The History of the People’s Democracy: civil rights, socialism, and the struggle against the Northern state, 1968-1983, unpublished PhD thesis, Ulster University, 2018., 2018.