Modern World study - The Events of Bloody Sunday

In July 1971, the IRA began open armed opposition to the British troops. It is alleged that the British troops shot and killed two unarmed "nationalist youth" during the summer of 1971. These shootings prompted a public outcry within Derry, forcing withdrawal of the Social Democratic and Labour Party from the parliament. In reaction to the increased violence and political unrest, the government began internment without a charge or trial and banned demonstrations. Leading up to this period the Republicans, or Catholics, sought a unified Ireland with no control or intervention by the British. The British in turn were not about to give up part of their country, but felt they were making concessions toward civil rights. Favouritism was still present for Protestants in housing, wages, and government there was soon an overwhelming amount of offence going towards the Catholic part of the population of free Derry eventually police overturned it by stopping the violence towards the mostly Catholic population the targets of the Catholic attacks became the police and the army. In a desperate attempt to protect themselves from the constant barrage of attacks the Catholics built barricades across the roads of N.Ireland to stop then from being harmed by the Army and the police force. From the sources I can find out numerous things that occurred during this report, Source A shows a biased opinion in favour if the troops which were sent in, this may be because the army are a strong force which are specially trained to attack the enemy but in this case they were under strict orders to put a stop to any rioting by any means possible, but this did not give them rights to shoot dead the trouble causers quotes such as ‘Rubbish’ imply that the ex troop is attacking the theory where as source B is well opposite to source A this source implies that the troops fired the first bullet an spawned this whole tragedy, this source is on the side of all of the grieving families that were affected by this, so this source therefore is saying that the victims of the shootings were innocent. Source 3 is another example of the constant onslaught the British army had to see after this, the Man claims to have over heard a conversation in the pub about some soldiers going on duty to ‘clear the bog’ but this man we think was after the spotlight we think he was there to stir things up again, and for the soldiers sake this was not taken in too politely by the public still the army face accusations of firing at unarmed civilians.

At last two reports were released by the government implying that all shall be forgotten for the truth will never be uncovered, one named the ‘Saville Report’ was released when the IRA ceasefire was in operation, the IRA had decided to stop fighting. And let the army do what they were sent there to do, without IRA interrogations and interferences things could cool down a little.