How has Bloody Sunday shaped the views of the Republicans/Nationalists? How has Partition shaped the views of the Loyalists/Unionists?

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Adam Griffith                        Candidate No. 3434

Merchant Taylors’                                                                          Centre No. 17632        

History Coursework

Question 1C

‘How has Bloody Sunday shaped the views of the Republicans/Nationalists’?

Bloody Sunday, 30th January 1972, was undeniably an extraordinary event in the Irish history and most definitely changed and shaped the views of many people. Here, twelve lives were taken from the Nationalists, seven of which were teenagers and each one was believed to be unarmed. That day swayed the views of many Catholic’s and because of it; many Nationalists turned to Republicans and resulted in violence to find ways for revenge. One hundred and eight British rounds were fired at the defenceless protesters. The head of the British army at the time said that there were only three, which made the Catholics believe that there was proof of the British lies.

As a whole, the Catholics were disappointed, shocked and angry at the way the situation was dealt. When the British were sent into Ireland, their aim was to keep cease the violence, at first the Catholics were relieved and happy at they're arrival but after this fiasco they did quite the opposite. This left many Nationalists feeling angry and deceived by the British government

The Catholics were outraged by the clear bias alliance shown by the British to the Protestants, the Catholic march for civil rights was banned even though marches such as the Orange march were allowed even though the previous marches for civil rights were all peaceful. This purely just motivated the Catholics and gave them another point to argue for. With this favouritism in mind the Catholics also wanted Internment to be put to an end as they saw this as an easy way of getting rid of some of the Catholics and was very clearly unfair.

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Bloody Sunday resulted in the views of Nationalists and the Republicans becoming much more extreme. This meant that a lot more of the Republicans resulted in fighting back with fire and getting violent against their enemies just as the British did. Because of this, many Splinter Groups formed such as the Provisional IRA, the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA to take revenge into their own hands. This led to various IRA attacks from splinter groups such as the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA. Now, the views of the Catholics have calmed down in most cases and have forgiven ...

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