Bloody Sunday

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Bloody Sunday

Bloody Sunday took place on Sunday, January 30th 1972. It took place in Derry, Northern Ireland. Catholic marchers were illegally marching against the act of internment, which is when people are arrested for being a member suspected of Para military type movement. The Protestants at the time had the power over the Catholics and this lead to fights between religions. Ted Heath the conservative prime minister of the time sent in British troops to keep the peace, this lead to more fighting, rioting and more deaths on both sides. Some say that the British where out for revenge, then whilst on a peace march a group of catholic marchers broke off and started throwing stones and causing trouble. At this point the truth becomes blurry because of bias accounts, and no media accounts. Supposedly British soldiers opened fire on innocent marchers killing 14 and further injuring another 13. The second accounts says that the marchers where armed and therefore it was their responsibility. The Catholics believe that the catholic marchers where innocent and the soldiers shot in cold blood. Where as the Protestants feel that the British soldiers where innocent and the Catholics were armed. This is why it’s so hard to find the truth.    

After bloody Sunday an enquiry was put forward to come to the truth and to find out exactly what happened. This was named the Widgery enquiry. It lasted 3 months including 2 months of investigation. This alone insulted the Catholics because the whole enquiry was short, too short to investigate 14 deaths. Also it was immediately after the incident which again offended them because there wasn’t time to grieve properly. Also the fact that the trial was put together by the British lord chief justice, this was an insult because he would be in favour of the soldiers. The whole trial was unfair because only soldiers where interviewed, this meant that the Catholics didn’t get a chance to explain their side of the argument. The trial came to the conclusion that the marchers might have been carrying weapons. This lead to more hate from the Catholics and a rise in the number of IRA members.    

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Then in 1998 a second was set up, this time it was called the Saville enquiry. This was set up by Tony Blair, this was because he was a labour prime minister therefore if the enquiry blamed the soldiers he couldn’t get blamed. Then if the soldiers where found guilty, it would be conservatives fault, this allowed Tony Blair to stay as a neutral party. The Saville report had 8 yrs of investigations run by lord Saville. The report interviewed over 1500 people including soldiers, Protestants, Catholics, civilians and IRA members. The leaders and members of the Saville enquiry were ...

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