There were various short-term results as well. The Conscription Crisis of 1918 was stemmed from a move by the to impose in . After the Easter Rising England was in desperate need of men to fight in the War. They tried to force young Irish men to join them. Sinn Féin, the Homerule Party and the Catholic Church was against this and tried to stop it. This was called the anti-conscription crisis. Whenever the British arrested the innocent men who had took no part in the Rising there was an uproar. By the end of the Summer they realised what a horrible mistake they had made in their harsh treatment of the 1916 rebels and began to free some of these prisoners. But it was too late. These men returned home and reformed the Irish volunteers under fake names. These groupsaere later to become the IRA. But it was too late. For the first time in modern Irish history a majority of the people wanted the British out. The new Sinn Féin Party choose Eamon de Valera as its president and leader. In the rising he had been in charge of the group of republicans who held a position near Mount Street bridge. The result of the 1918 election was a complete victory for Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin candiates swept the country. When all the votes were counted seventy three were declared elected.
There was also some long term consequences. In December 1918 a general election was held throughout the United Kingdom. In the house of Commons one hundred and three seats were to be filled. But as we have seen there had been trumendous cchange in Ireland since the last election in 1910. Because of tehe Easter Rising and the way in which the British government had made martyrs out of the Republican leaders, people began to support the new Sinn Féin Prty rather than the Home Rulers. The year 1918 saw the British hmake more blunders in Ireland. In the end Sinn Féin got seventy three seats. Refusing to go to Westminister, London, twenty seven Sinn Féiners, the rest were in jail, met in Dublin in January 1919. They drew up an Irish declaration of Independence from Britain and claimed to be the real parliament of the island. They took the title ‘Dála Éireann’ for their Dublin parliament. This new Dáil elected ministers for its ‘government,’ with the imprisioned De Valera as Prime Minister. The IRA was set up to provide the ‘muscle’ behind Sinn Féin. Throughout 1917 the IRA tried to attract as many recruits as possible and to purchase arms. Within the IRA the most important leader was Michael Collins. A Cork man who had been only twenty six when he fought in the GPO. Collins was a great organiser and a man who was a born leader. He helped make the IRA a far better disciplined army than anything Irish nationalists had put together before. Michael Collins led the IRA into the Anglo Irish War, 1919. The British didn’t view this as a real war. In the end the British realised that it was a conflict that they could not win and were ready to consider some sort of Irish independence. The IRA and Sinn Féin, on the other hand, knew that while they could not lose this war they couldn’t really win it either. With both sides so willing for peace, a truce was agreed in 1921. This meant that Ireland was to be split in two, the north and the south.
To summarise, there were many consequences of the rising; including many immediate reasons e.g. the executions of the leaders, and many long term reasons, for example, the formation of the Sinn Fein party and the IRA. For these reasons, even though of its short duration, the Easter rising had a huge impact on Ireland, even up to this day as it is still being taught in schools all over the country.
3. Is there significant evidence in Sources D to J to explain why the Troubles broke out in 1969? Explain your answer using the sources and knowledge from your own studies.
The Troubles is a term used to describe the latest installment of periodic communal violence involving republican and loyalist organisations, the (RUC), the and others in from the late 1960s until the late 1990s ending with the on , . The arrival of British troops failed to end the trouble in Ulster. At first they were welcomed by most Catholics, but this was short lived. The Unionists remained in control and the army came to be seen as just another part of the Unionist security forces like the RUC. The hated ‘B-specials’ were disbanded in 1970 and replaced by the Ulster Defence Regiment. Even so the UDR was itself almost entirely Protestant and did little to improve Catholic confidence. In Nationalist areas the IRA was increasingly seen as the only ‘army’ able to defend the Catholics.
The IRA was able to claim that the presence of British troops showed that Ireland was still not independent. Nationalists came to see the soldiers as an army of occupation. Army tactics in dealing with rioting, especially the use of CS gas and rubber bullets, increased support for the IRA.
The troubles caused O’Neill to resign and in August 1971 a new Stormont government led by Brian Faulkner decided on a new policy. This was internment. Internment meant that suspects could be held in prision for any amount of time without trial. On 30 January 1972 a large crowd of civil rights marchers gathered in Derry to protest against internment. This day is known as Bloody Sunday. By the end of the day thirteen civilians had been killed by army bullets. The events of ‘Bloody Sunday’ outraged the Nationalist community. It was followed by more rioting and recruitment for the IRA, which now saw British soldiers as ‘legitimate targets.’ I wil now go on to each of the sources I have been given in turn and I hope to find out if these explain why ‘The Troubles’ broke out in 1969.
Source D is a primary source written in 1969 by a woman called Bernadette Devlin. She was a leading civil rights leader in the 1960’s, she was a Catholic living in County Tyrone. She soon became an MP for Northern Ireland. She highlighted the plight of the Catholics who were being treated as “second class citizens,” she also drew attention to the things that were wrong in Northern Ireland.
Bernadette Devlin, in source D, pointed out the separate education systems in Ireland at the time; the Catholic teachings of the history of Ireland, and the Protestant teachings of the history of Ireland. Each community had a separate history, every child given a nationalist or unionist viewpoint. Bernadette Devlin also appeared in the video ‘Legacy,’ (source J) again she was talking about the Troubles, and the civil rights marches in which she was heavily involved in and giving a nationalist viewpoint to the causes of the Troubles.
Source D is an indirect source as it isn’t directly telling us why the troubles started in 1969, but it leads us to believe that education played a huge part in provoking the Troubles. Source D is a useful source in some ways as it underlines a main problem in Ireland at this time. But it does have some flaws as these cultural differences were apparent from the 1920s, and so the question is asked, why didn’t the troubles start then?
In addition to this, education should be teaching values to children, not to be provoking violence and separation.
In the next source, source E, it was a pictorial source from a Protestant viewpoint. Source E is a nineteenth century showing Erin (Ireland) bound in rope by a Catholic priest. This shows us that Protestants thought that it was the Catholic Church controlled the Irish people and Ireland. I feel that this source is more useful than the previous source (source D) as it shows us that Protestants felt fear towards Catholics. Protestants felt that if Ireland became an all Ireland that the Protestants would be ruled by the Catholics.
Although source E is not immediate enough to be related to the troubles, it defines deeper cultural opinions and fears between these two separate communities.
Source F, the next source, is, in my opinion, a very useful source. It is a pictorial source, showing a map of Derry, and the Gerrymandering going on in Derry in 1966. “Gerry Mander” was the name of an American councillor who fixed the electoral boundaries to win the election, since then, this type of rigging of elections are known as the “Gerrymandering.”
Source F shows the political differences in the 1960’s as although there were 2:1 Catholics to Protestants living in Derry at that time, there were only 8 nationalist councillors, and 12 unionist councillors in the Derry council in 1966.
I believe that source F is one of the more useful sources that I have studied because it is more of an immediate cause of the troubles, unlike the previous two sources. Due to this Gerrymandering, Catholics felt that Protestants were given the most powerful jobs within the government, this is proved in source J as it told us that only 36 out of 500 jobs were held by Catholics at Stormont in 1932, and all of the top positions were all held by Protestants. Therefore the Catholics believed that the Protestants were making all the big decisions regarding the lives of those people living in Northern Ireland.
The next source, source G, in my opinion is a highly unreliable source. It is a primary visual source from 1641, it is a scene from Portadown Bridge in which Catholics are attacking Protestants and killing them. It is believed that this is highly exaggerated. On the other hand, in some ways this source could be called useful, as it shows how much mistrust and suspicion there was between Catholics and Protestants, I was therefore traditional dislike between the two societies.
Source G is in a Protestant viewpoint unlike the previous source, which was completely factual and unbiased. Source H is a photograph from 5th October 1968; it is a useful source, as it shows us the police brutality at the time. The picture shows an RUC officer striking a civil rights marcher, the march that they were at was a peaceful one so the RUC’s violence was unprovoked and unjustified. I feel that source H is a direct cause of the troubles as Catholics were resentful of the police’s violence towards them. In Source J they show various civil rights marches, and in each one of them, they show a peaceful protest, and this fact is strengthened by eye-witnesses from the time, and other video footage obtained by the production company from news reports etc. at the time.
Like source H, source I is another photograph. I is a primary source from the beginning of 1969, and it was therefore taken immediately before the Troubles broke out. The RUC claimed that the civil rights marchers were a front for the IRA, this obviously caused friction between the two sides.
Source J was a video of a history programme called ‘Legacy.’ I found this the most useful source of those which I studied as it gave me a near full history of why the Troubles broke out. The video began with the long term reasons of the Troubles. Source J began by explaining the six county state of Northern Ireland being set up in 1920, the video pointed out how the minority (the Catholics) disagreed with the New State being cut off from the rest of Ireland.
In addition to this, J stated how Unionists were pleased with their New State, and how it was a one party state, and run by a majority of Unionists. Source J showed the two separate communities and their distrust for each other, this is an obvious cause in starting the Troubles.
Another point which the video made that they suggested had fuelled the Troubles was that Catholics were not given a say in politics, this was partly due to ‘Gerrymandering,’ but it was also claimed by eye-witnesses at the time that the reason Catholics were not as involved in politics as the Protestants was due to discrimination within the job sector. For example, in 1932 in Stormont, only thirty-six out of five hundred positions in the top civil service jobs were held by Catholics, the rest were held by Protestants.
It is claimed by some Protestants that the reason for this surprising statistic is that it isn’t because of discrimination towards Catholics, but because that a majority of Catholic schools at this time were focusing on Irish culture and the arts e.g. Hurling, camogie etc. Whereas, Protestant schools mainly focused more on academic subjects, for example, mathematics and science.
Source J also gave details of the housing discrimination which had occurred in Northern Ireland at this time; only a quarter of council houses went to Catholics, where there was a much bigger majority of Catholics compared to Protestants. Houses that could fit around 10 people were going to Protestants with two or three people families, Catholics with 8, 9 or 10 people in their families were being squeezed into a one bed house, this was a very regular occurrence, and some Protestant actually sold their farmhouses etc. to move into houses from the council.
Source J drew attention to the segregation of these two very separate communities. It gave us a great deal of factual evidence to back up the evidence which it provided, for example, in 1922, 10,000 Catholics lost their jobs in Belfast alone, and in Derry at this time there was one soldier for every 27 people in Derry, this again shows the high likeliness of Troubles beginning. In addition to this, as well as the Gerrymandering that was going on in Derry, a Catholic vote was worth only half of that which a Protestants was worth. There were also twice as many Catholics on unemployment benefits as there were Protestant’s, this is shown in ship building as it was a 90% Protestant workforce, and in engineering it was an 85% majority of Protestants.
One of the few points that source J missed, was that of the 1966 the civil rights marchers demanding their rights not to be treated as second class citizens, this too played a substantial part in the cause of the Troubles, and because of this being left out, source J is not as accurate as it could have been. In addition to this source J did not mention the 11 plus and the effect that this had on the troubles, but disregarding these, source J gave a reasonable amount of evidence to why the Troubles broke out.
In conclusion I think that each source from D to I, by themselves, I believe are not very useful, as individually they do not provide sufficient evidence to why the troubles broke out in 1969 but collectively they do give us quite a great deal of information regarding why The Troubles started when they, but they do not give us the full picture. However, the most useful source for me was source J, this was a video called ‘Legacy’, it provided me with a great deal of facts, and the best insight to why the Troubles actually started.
4. The events that occurred in Derry on 30th January 1972 became known as ‘Bloody Sunday.’ Why have these events produced such different historical interpretations? Refer to sources A to C and any other interpretations of the events from your studies to help you in your answer.
Bloody Sunday has joined the long list of dates in Irelands’ history to be remembered with bitterness and anger. On Sunday 30th January 1972, a large crowd of Civil Rights marchers gathered in Derry to protest against internment. The army was sent by the unionist government to prevent the march reaching the Guildhall from the Bogside, it was then that the fighting began. Thirteen civilians were shot dead with army bullets.
When Bloody Sunday is being interpreted, there are largely three different viewpoints, the nationalist viewpoint, the unionist viewpoint, and a neutral viewpoint. The nationalist viewpoint usually suggests that it is completely the army’s fault that Bloody Sunday took place, and it says that the victims were murdered, even though they were not carrying weapons like the army suggested, and did not prove a threat to the army. The unionist viewpoint is the complete opposite. It says that because the march against internment was banned, the marchers had no right to be were they were, and that the civilians were actually handling guns, or were near them. However the nationalists disagree with this saying that there was no proof, and that the evidence was exaggerated to suit the unionist government. The last viewpoint is one which is neutral; this is the common agreement that Bloody Sunday was a tragedy waiting to happen. It usually says that Bloody Sunday was the fault of both involved; the civilians march should not have been taking place, but where the army to heavy handed in dealing with this illegal protest?
Source A, from the Daily Mail, Friday 17th September 1999, is written in a unionist viewpoint. The Daily Mail is very pro army and very much against the marchers. The article begins by summarising what had happened in the Lord Saville Inquiry that day, and the outrage caused by what had been said.
The article in whole is written in a unionist viewpoint, this is quite obvious when we see that the two main interviewees are a conservative MP, whose constituency includes the paratroopers base, and would therefore feel a certain likeness to those involved, and may hold a very one-sided view to the whole issues of Bloody Sunday. The other person who was interviewed for this Daily Mail interview, was a former soldier who was in Derry at the time of Bloody Sunday. Both of these people would hold very strong views on the unionist opinion of Bloody Sunday, and this would coordinate with the Daily Mails stance on politics.
Possibly another reason that the Daily Mail was so strong against the new Saville Inquiry is that at the time of Bloody Sunday it was a Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath. So they likely would have disagreed with this new inquiry by a Labour government.
The Daily Mails support for the army is reinforced by a previous campaign which they had previously set up to release Lee Clegg (a paratrooper) from jail after he shot two joy-riders in West Belfast killing one of them. This happened in 1990, and Clegg was finally cleared in 2000 after a lengthy legal battle, in which the Daily Mail campaigned tirelessly for his release. This highlights the Mails unconditional support for the army.
In comparison to this, source B is very much against the army, and is written with a very nationalist approach. It is written by John Mullin, an Irish correspondent for the Guardian. The Guardian is possibly written for a more educated group of people than the Daily Mail, as the Mail is a more tabloid newspaper, whereas the Guardian is possibly a more serious minded newspaper. The Guardian would pride itself of not being bias. It is a British newspaper but tries to be fair.
Different to source A, the witness used in source B is a nationalist, and is strongly against the paratroopers. In addition to this, the reporter for the newspaper is based in Ireland, so maybe as he is based in Ireland, he may have a more specified and specific knowledge of Irelands history. Whereas the reporter for the Mail may not have as detailed knowledge of the troubles.
If there are no other reasons for the differing opinions of the two separate views which each newspaper holds, it is that they are both simply trying to sell their newspapers, both to their very own separate markets.
Source C is an ITN news report in which was made thirty years after Bloody Sunday so therefore it was made on ‘hear say.’ It holds a neutral viewpoint, this is possibly because ITN appeals to a wider range of an audience, and so it has to appeal to a greater number of people than perhaps either of the newspapers need to. Therefore ITN may have to hold the perspective which satisfies both the nationalist and unionist viewpoints.
In saying this however, ITN is slightly critical of the army, and to some extent infers that there was a deliberate attempt for the army to do something in Derry, but they simply state the facts so that they don’t segregate a particular part of the country.
Another source which I studied is from a Catholic priest, Father Bradley, he describes Bloody Sunday as a “massacre.” He suggested that the British army should “hang its head in shame” after the “disgusting violence” which he witnessed. Father Bradley possibly had this view because he is a Catholic, and this is a nationalist viewpoint, and a majority of Catholics believed that the army were mainly at fault for the troubles.
On the other hand, in a different source in which Nigel Wade writing about Bloody Sunday for the Daily Telegraph. It is very conservative. He holds a more neutral viewpoint, and states that it was “impossible to tell who fired the first shots”. This is a more diplomatic view, as he is writing for what is possibly a more diplomatic paper, which is refusing to take sides with either the nationalists or the unionists.
Similarly, a report from Lord Widgery, a British judge who investigated Bloody Sunday for the British government said, “some soldiers showed a high degree of responsibility …(others) firing bordered on the reckless.” This shows a neutral understanding of both sides and is again very sensitive to both arguments. This is possibly because Lord Widgery maybe felt obliged to agree with the British government, rather than possibly starting a controversy by blaming the army for the 14 civilians killed.
To conclude, there are many reasons for all of the different historical interpretations of Bloody Sunday; different people simply believe in different things, the nationalists believe the army was completely at fault, the unionists believe the civil rights marchers should not have been marching where they were, and then those who think Bloody Sunday was a tragedy waiting to happen. The interpretations that I have mentioned above are reliable to a certain extent. Even though this inquiry can’t bring back the 14 victims it can bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.