1963-68: Before the Troubles
From the early 1960s a campaign against discrimination in Northern Ireland had been growing. Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O'Neill was under pressure from Westminster to increase the pace of reform. Many unionists were alarmed both by this and by the strongly nationalist tone of some of the commemorations at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising. In 1966 the loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force was formed and was responsible for three murders in that year. The following year the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was created and began pressing the Unionist government for immediate reform.