Civil rights are those legal rights granted to citizens by the government. Examples include the right to vote and anti-discrimination laws. Civil rights movements usually want equal protection of the laws for minorities, as well as new laws outlawing discrimination and its vestiges.
In Northern Ireland the Civil Rights movement developed in the 1960s among nationalists in Northern Ireland who demanded an end to what was seen as Unionist discrimination, in the form of the gerrymandering of local electoral districts to ensure the victory of unionist candidates in areas with nationalist majorities, and in discrimination in the awarding of local authority housing. One of the leaders of the Civil Rights movement was future Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume, another, Austin Currie, a candidate for President of Ireland in 1990. Hume's co-Nobel Lauraute, David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in the 1990s and 2000s, called the Northern Ireland of the 1960s a "cold house for catholics".
