The immediate effect of this was that there was a lot of shock and disbelief among both the Irish and British publics.
This quote shows this: “it was a massacre. I saw no one shooting at troops. If anybody had been, I would have seen it. I saw only the army shooting. The British Army should hang its head in shame after today’s disgusting violence.”
This is by father Bradley who was a Catholic priest and not only tells of his shock but also the fact that no Irish people opened fire on the British and so it was maybe unlawful and unjustified to open fire with live shells on them and especially into a crowd of peaceful unarmed protesters.
The shock and disbelief not only made people feel bad about the British but it also increased and changed the anger among the Irish.
There was an increase in riots on the streets in Northern Ireland and on the same day of the protester’s funeral, angry crowds burned down the British embassy in Dublin, which was the Capital of the Irish republic. Also Bernadette Devlin attacked and punched Reginald Maudling (British Home Secretary) in the face while in the House of Commons.
The violence also led to the Irish (Northern Irish) parliament in Stormont being suspended and direct rule from the British Parliament in Westminster was introduced.
Finally the last but probably one of the most important short time points was that a report was set up to investigate Bloody Sunday and who was to blame. This report was called the Widgery report after the Chief of it – Widgery.
Max Carter 11EB
It excused the British Army and said those to blame were the dead rebels for causing all the trouble.
This report was ordered by the British Government and so lots of the public thought it to be biased.
This is what the report said:
“There was no general breakdown in Army discipline…soldiers who identified armed gunmen fired upon them in accordance with the standing orders in the yellow card. Each soldier was his own judge of whether he had identified a gunman…at one end of the scale, some soldiers showed a high degree of responsibility, at the other…firing bordered on the reckless.” This is just basically saying that it was not the British at fault but instead the people who were shot. Some people believed that as it was the British Government writing this report then it was likely to be biased, after the report was released many minds were still convinced of its bias towards the British.
I personally think that what the report had to say was wrong as the soldiers fired at large groups of people, in which case these could have been innocent civilians. This report added anger and resentment towards the already hated British.
Moving onto the long-term points Bloody Sunday in 1972 resulted in large numbers of violence and deaths, which were still increasing rapidly. Most of this was because of PIRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) and this group was always gaining new members so the terrorist activity increased. For example in 1973, two provisional car bombs exploded in London and 195 people were taken to hospital!
The Violence even worked its way to Britain as shown in this source:
“An IRA bomb in a Guildford pub killed five people and injured six. Special powers were introduced for the arrest and detention of suspected terrorists in Britain. This shows that all the violence is moving across the Irish waters and into Britain. Special powers had also even been set up just for the terrorists in Britain, which tells me there must have been quite a few Terrorists in and around Britain.
Another key long-term impact of Bloody Sunday resulted in a shift of tactics on the British side towards Northern Ireland. They started to negotiate peace rather than use violence to suppress. This was the true start of the peace process as today and was widely known as Power Sharing. This came about when the British tried to end the ongoing violence by taking down the barricades between Catholic and Protestant land.
Many government officials in Britain and Ireland did not think this would work but nevertheless, a government was set up for power sharing. However this government was brought down in 1974 after Unionists formed the United Unionist Council to organise strikes and disrupt activities.
Last but not least, the final impact of Bloody Sunday and one that is ongoing today even by some people is the deep hatred towards the British Government. This is for all the things that the government did like the Widgery report, but mainly the mistrust of the British intentions.
Max Carter 11EB
In conclusion I believe that Bloody Sunday played and had a very large impact on the history of Ireland. I think this because some of the things I have mentioned in my answer are still ongoing today after almost fifty years.
The main ongoing impact that a lot of Irish people have very strong feelings about is the strong hatred for the British Government. Lots of people have thoughts on this because it was the British government’s terrible actions forty years ago that helped to shape Ireland and make it how it is today where still violence is present and the Catholics and Protestants don’t get on.
I think the shock and disbelief on the short term point side is completely justified as in my opinion it was not right at all that the British opened fire with live rounds on unarmed civilians, some of which were protesting and some of which were completely innocent and were just caught in crossfire. I think that it was acceptable to fire Rubber bullets and water cannons as they were doing a pretty good job dispersing rioters so why use the proper guns and kill lots of people when they can moved on without any fatalities.
