Ivan Averill Cooper (5 January 1944 – 26 June 2019) was a

nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...

politician from

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. He was a member of the

Parliament of Northern Ireland The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore ord ...

and a founding member of the

Social Democratic and Labour Party The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP; ) is a social democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland Assembly ( MLAs) and two members of Parliament (M ...

(SDLP). He is best known for leading the civil rights march on 30 January 1972 that developed into the Bloody Sunday massacre.

Early years

Cooper was born in

Claudy Claudy () is a village and townland (of 1,154 acres) in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It lies in the Faughan Valley, southeast of Derry, where the River Glenrandal joins the River Faughan. It is situated in the civil parish of Cumber ...

County Londonderry County Londonderry (Ulster Scots dialects, Ulster-Scots: ''Coontie Lunnonderrie''), also known as County Derry (), is one of the six Counties of Northern Ireland, counties of Northern Ireland, one of the thirty-two Counties of Ireland, count ...

, into a working-class

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

family who were members of the

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland (, ; , ) is a Christian church in Ireland, and an autonomy, autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the Christianity in Ireland, second-largest Christian church on the ...

. He was brought up in nearby Killaloo, before he and his family moved in 1956 to the "

Bogside The Bogside is a neighbourhood outside the city walls of Derry, Northern Ireland. The large gable-wall murals by the Bogside Artists, Free Derry Corner and the Gasyard Féile (an annual music and arts festival held in a former gasyard) are ...

" area of

Derry Derry, officially Londonderry, is the second-largest City status in the United Kingdom, city in Northern Ireland, and the fifth-largest on the island of Ireland. Located in County Londonderry, the city now covers both banks of the River Fo ...

city. He was briefly a member of the Claudy Young Unionist Association until April 1965 when he joined the

Northern Ireland Labour Party The Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) was a political party in Northern Ireland which operated from 1924 until 1987. Origins The roots of the NILP can be traced back to the formation of the Belfast Labour Party in 1892. Previously, in 1885 ...

. As the Labour candidate in the Stormont general

election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

that year, he attracted a moderate amount of cross-community support, but was not elected. Committed to

non-violence Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...

, he became a major figure in the

Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA; ) was an organisation that campaigned for civil rights for Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in Belfast on 9 April 1967,Guildhall A guildhall, also known as a guild hall or guild house, is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Europe, with many surviving today in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commo ...

foyer, he suggested that Catholics and Protestants alike should fight for their

rights Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of freedom or Entitlement (fair division), entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal sy ...

"as the

blacks Black is a racial classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and often additional phenotypical ch ...

in America were fighting". Attempting to rise above

sectarian Sectarianism is a debated concept. Some scholars and journalists define it as pre-existing fixed communal categories in society, and use it to explain political, cultural, or religious conflicts between groups. Others conceive of sectarianism a ...

politics, he remained hopeful that both

Catholics The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

and Protestants could work together, particularly the working classes of both groups, who he believed shared the same greater interests. His

stance, however, led many fellow Protestants to view him as a traitor. Cooper nonetheless remained a practicing Anglican.

Civil rights campaign

Cooper continued his civil rights campaigning, ignoring a month-long ban imposed on marches in Derry in November 1968 by organising a march two days later with the DCAC in which up to 15,000 people took part. Following violence resulting from numerous illegal marches in the city, Cooper called for a halt to spontaneous marches. After escalation of street disturbances at the start of the year, following a march by the People's Democracy movement, which resulted in residents of the

cordoning off areas with impromptu barricades, Cooper managed to persuade locals to remove the barricades. The damage seemed irreparable, however, after a march in

Newry Newry (; ) is a City status in Ireland, city in Northern Ireland, standing on the Newry River, Clanrye river in counties County Down, Down and County Armagh, Armagh. It is near Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, the border with the ...

got out of control. Most Protestants and many Catholics who had remained supportive of the civil rights actions now withdrew their support.

Parliament

In the 1969 general election, Cooper was elected as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

member of the

for Mid Londonderry, defeating the sitting Nationalist Party MP, Paddy Gormley. On 12 August – the start of the few intense days of violence which have become known as the

Battle of the Bogside The Battle of the Bogside was a large three-day riot that took place from 12 to 14 August 1969 in Derry, Northern Ireland. Thousands of Catholic/Irish nationalist residents of the Bogside district, organised under the Derry Citizens' Defence ...

– Cooper tried to restrain Catholics protesting an

Apprentice Boys of Derry The Apprentice Boys of Derry is a Protestant fraternal society founded in 1814 and based in the city of Derry, Ireland (now part of Northern Ireland). In 2021 it had over 10,000 members worldwide, with membership open to Protestant men only. T ...

parade by linking arms with

John Hume John Hume (18 January 19373 August 2020) was an Irish nationalist politician in Northern Ireland and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A founder and leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Hume served in the Parliament of Northern Irel ...

and

Eddie McAteer Edward Gerard McAteer (25 June 1914 – 25 March 1986) was an Irish nationalist politician from Northern Ireland. He was born in Coatbridge, Scotland, to Hugh McAteer and Brigid McAteer (née O'Doherty). McAteer's family moved to Derry in Nor ...

. However, they were swept aside and Cooper was knocked unconscious by a brick. Cooper was suspended from Stormont for a week on 20 March after a protest in the Chamber over a Public Order Bill.

SDLP

On 21 August 1970, Cooper co-founded the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) with Hume,

Paddy Devlin Patrick Joseph Devlin (8 March 1925 – 15 August 1999) was an Irish socialist, labour and civil rights activist and writer from Belfast. He was a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), a Stormont MP and a member o ...

Austin Currie Joseph Austin Currie (11 October 1939 – 9 November 2021) was an Irish politician who served as a Minister of State with responsibility for Children's Rights from 1994 to 1997. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin West constituency ...

, Paddy O’Hanlon and

Gerry Fitt Gerard Fitt, Baron Fitt (9 April 1926 – 26 August 2005), was a politician from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was a founder and the first leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), a social democratic and Irish nationalist party. ...

. Cooper organised a civil rights and anti-internment march for 30 January 1972, which was to develop into Bloody Sunday, in which fourteen unarmed civilians were murdered by soldiers from the Parachute Regiment on duty in Derry, who opened fire on the crowd. After the abolition of the Stormont Parliament, Cooper was elected as one of the representatives of Mid Ulster to the

Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973 The Northern Ireland Assembly was a legislative assembly set up by the Government of the United Kingdom on 3 May 1973 to restore devolved government to Northern Ireland with the power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive made up of unionists an ...

and the

Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention (NICC) was an elected body set up in 1975 by the United Kingdom Labour Party (UK), Labour government of Harold Wilson as an attempt to deal with constitutional issues surrounding the status of N ...

in 1975. He was also the SDLP's candidate in the constituency in both the February 1974 and October 1974 Westminster elections. By standing in the first of these, he split the nationalist vote and in effect ensured the defeat of independent MP Bernadette McAliskey. In 1983, Cooper stood aside after the boundary changes for the new Foyle constituency to let his colleague and friend John Hume contest the seat. The increase in levels of violence intertwined with the politics made Cooper slowly move away from politics. He was later an insolvency consultant.

Legacy

At the height of his political career, Ivan Cooper commanded the largest support of any nationalist Stormont MP. A film was released in 2002, called '' Bloody Sunday'', in which Cooper is portrayed by actor

James Nesbitt William James Nesbitt (born 15 January 1965) is an actor from Northern Ireland. From 1987, Nesbitt spent seven years performing in plays that varied from the musical '' Up on the Roof'' (1987, 1989) to the political drama ''Paddywack'' (1994). ...

. He was the husband of Frances Cooper, and had two daughters; Sinead and Bronagh Cooper.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Ivan 1944 births 2019 deaths Members of the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention Members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland 1969–1973 Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly 1973–1974 Socialists from Northern Ireland Politicians from County Londonderry Protestant Irish nationalists Anglicans from Northern Ireland Social Democratic and Labour Party members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland Members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland for County Londonderry constituencies Junior ministers of the 1974 Northern Ireland Assembly