The events that occurred in Derryon 30th January 1972 became known as 'Bloody Sunday'. Why have these events produced such different historical interpretations?

The events that occurred in Derry on 30th January 1972 became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’.

Why have these events produced such different historical interpretations?

‘Bloody Sunday’, as it became known, has produced many different interpretations of events. Since January 1972 people have recorded diverse versions of events depending on where they were or which faction of society they belonged to.

The sources used for the purpose of this essay are all from the media. The first two are from news paper reports written 27 years after the event following new revelations made during the partial disclosure of evidence submitted to the inquiry lead by Lord Saville, commissioned by Tony Blair. Source (c) is taken from an ITN news report relating to the same inquiry some 14 months later (than the other sources) in November 2000.

Source (a) is an extract from the ‘Daily Mail’, written by the deputy Political Editor. This newspaper is by tradition a conservative newspaper, so it portrays some more right wing ideas in its stories, and it has been known to support controversial issues like capital punishment. The paper is aimed the more middle class people. In this Northern Ireland case ‘The Daily Mail’ is Pro-Ulster, so this means that although being a news paper it should be neutral, that it does support the Protestants. The IRA is viewed as a terrorist organisation, and is not seen them as a freedom fighting organisation. The Saville Inquiry was commissioned by a Labour government who were initiating peace talks with the radical Irish group Sinn Fein, the daily mail would therefore analyse these events from a conservative view point. There are some things that make the source a bit unfair, the news papers have their own interpretations of the events, but in their interviews they have another interpretation of the events that happened. So it is two different interpretations in one piece. The sources that they choose will also affect the reliability of the source. As they are a conservative newspaper then the sources that they choose will be more conservative as well. The person that they are interviewing in this is a MP for the conservative party so his views of the event will make the event sound better not worse. He will do this as at the time off the event there was a conservative government in power. At the time that this source was written Tony Blair was in talks with Sinn Fein, these talks were about some hopeful peace. The paras (parachute unit) will give a different story to that of the protesters of the event. One Para has said that this new report has failed to mention the fact that there were nail and acid bombs being thrown at them. This source is one sided as it only asks the Paras what happened, so they only got one side of the story. This newspaper is conservative so it will back the paras and the government as there was a conservative government in power.

This source gives off one opinion of what happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’, there are many opinions of what happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’, this is one of them.

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This source gives off one opinion of what happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’, there are many opinions of what happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’, this is one of them.

Source (b) is an extract from the newspaper ‘The Guardian’. This newspaper is slightly left wing, so it is slightly Labour in its views, but it is almost centre. So it is known for not supporting capital punishment. In this case, Northern Ireland, it does not agree with what the IRA was doing there but it still managed to show some sympathy towards the IRA. The ‘Guardian’ seemed to understand why these people were willing to go to such extremes. The ‘Guardian’ says that the people that were killed were innocent and defenceless, where as the ‘Daily Mail’ supported the paras. According to the Widgery report the paras were correct in opening fire on all of those people as they were found to have been holding firearms, but in this new report it has found that one of the victims was shot from about a metre away and then a further two times whilst he was on the floor. His lawyer said that this could merit a murder prosecution. Then another man who was killed was hit on the back of the head with a ‘Dum-Dum’, these fragment on impact and were made illegal under the Geneva Convention, therefore these soldiers had broken the law. The Widgery report is said to have just been a cover up for the government and those soldiers who opened fire. In this article they have got the opinions of the people from Derry and the relative of the victims but they have nothing for the paras, so this article is very one sided. As this article is more to the left it will try to make the government and the paras sound worse and try to make out that the actions that they took were wrong. One of the scientists who carried out the original forensic tests said that the same results could be explained by other contaminations such as exhaust fumes. In his opinion there could no longer be a strong suspicion that the victims held or were even close to any weapons.

This is another opinion of what happened on Bloody Sunday, this is just one opinion of many different ones.

Source (C) is a news report from ‘ITN News’. ITN is not right or left wing so it will be more objective and not one sided, due to this it should be more factual, not using evidence to support one side. Its aims will to inform the viewers more than trying to persuade them to support one side. According to this source only 13 people had been killed whereas the other sources say 14 people were killed, we therefore have to question the accuracy of this source. It gives off the impression that the army had been planning to clear out Bog side. The person supposedly had heard two off duty soldiers talking about ‘Clearing the bog’. There are a few things that could make the source unreliable, such as they were in a pub, he could have been drinking and imagined that or just not understood what the two soldiers were talking about.. How did he know that they were off duty soldiers, were they talking to him or to each other it does not tell us. He said that he heard that a couple of months before the event, but he spoke out in the year 2000, 28 years later. He could not have remembered ever single detail so what he said may not have actually been true. Things that are said like that might not always add up to make sense with an event that happens shortly after it is said.

This source is another example of an interpretation of the events of bloody Sunday, but again this is just one of the many interpretations.

In conclusion there was a lot of people at the event who have experienced different things, these have then been passed on to other people and may be been changed. From this there is not any way that the correct truth will come out. There are only three sources of so many, the sources I have, were not at the time of Bloody Sunday, and they were all almost 30 years after. Different stories come out for different reasons, for example the paras would say that they were fired upon so they returned fire, and other people will say that the army had planned to do this all the time.

Gareth Clifford -