bloody sunday

Alex Gregory history N. Ireland essay

The events that occurred in Derry on 30th of 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 was a very tragic day, and was the result of thirteen people being killed by the British paratroopers and oddly enough they were there to protect the catholic community from protestant violence, which had been a real problem in the late 1960's, especially as the catholic community became more vocal in its search for civil rights. as the civil rights movement gathered pace, the IRA thoroughly infiltrated it and in many ways manipulated it for it own ends, combining this with an increase in terrorist activities. This caused an increasingly violent backlash from the protestant community, which saw attacks on normal Catholics increase significantly, both in frequency and brutality.
The army was there as an impartial force to keep the peace on the streets, to keep gangs of youths from killing each other in what amounted to open war, and in the process endangering the persons and property of normal people.
impartiality did not last long however, catholic rioters, marchers and activists, as well as the IRA were often dealt with harshly by the army, and they became to be seen as a hostile occupying force. They had initially been welcomed by many sections of the catholic community, but this quickly changed. The army became a target of violence by the catholic community, and became harsher in its treatment of that community as a result, further increasing resentment. The army was able to arrest people on suspicion of involvement with the IRA. These people were interned. This meant imprisonment with trail; all of these people were Catholic.
Relations between catholic N. Ireland and the British army culminated on bloody Sunday which was on the 30thJanuary 1972, when British paratroopers was responsible for the death of thirteen people on the streets of a British city. After that the army was most definitely an enemy of the catholic community, as well as the IRA which it had always been.
Ultimately the army's contribution to peace in n Ireland was positive; it generally showed restraint while keeping the IRA in check, allowing a political solution to be found.

The army was sent into Ireland as Britain’s only option because the paratroops were the only regiment free on that day; it was their turn to be on duty. The paratroopers had only one main target which was to find people in danger and if they sensed something bad was about to happen then they was to fire and ask questions later, a lot of people said that the paratroopers are the reason why thirteen people died but the army was not the only group that was involved on this day, many people was part of the action, which were ...

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Although the army was not fully to blame, many people, the dead people’s friends and relatives believed they were.

The IRA was Catholics and their main targets were mainly terrorist crimes but when this conflict had risen they were strongly defending their religion.

The media was involved to capture any new information they could find about what was happening when the fighting broke loose, the media showed this information by any ways available to them, which included TV reporters, photographers for magazines and news papers and also the local radio stations, the news travelled fast to many people all around the world.

Source A is an article from the daily mail that is a claim that would support the government and the army it shows us how the army was accused to have been indiscriminately firing at innocent people whereas a very important and relevant fact is that no women and children were killed in the outrage of bloody Sunday. The article says that it is strange that the ‘’new’’ evidence is suddenly appearing when everybody else was against the army as well.

Source B was an article by the Guardian who usually supports the labour party and was usually against the government. But in this case they were with the Families Of the story, the guardian reported on how the families of the dead felt about what happened on the 30th of January 1972 and their statement still and obviously were against the army and the government saying that there relatives were defenseless and innocent of any accusations made by the government and the army.

Source C by ITN news, televised a broadcast 28 years after bloody Sunday that enhances new information to the inquiry that a new witness claimed to have heard the British paratroop regiment that was involved on the day of bloody Sunday talking about ‘clearing the bog’ which was later found out to be linked to the military operation in Derry’s Bogside were on the 30th of January 1972 thirteen people was killed. This information was 28 years old at this so it wouldn’t be as sufficient as on the day and some of the information that was given could be either false or twisted in some way, this meant that the information could not be made relevant in any way to the actions by the paratroops accused of killing the thirteen people.

To summarize the overall events that occurred on bloody Sunday is that the truth has been lost over the years of agreeing and disagreeing about the real truth of what happened on the 30th of January 1972.

Free Derry was in 1972 controlled by the Catholics and mainly the IRA, which meant that the army and the Catholics were always at war with each other; this was because the widgery report was not built to satisfaction on both sides which lead to more confliction.

A recent ‘’saville’’ report which is yet to be finished suggests that the truth is lost because, people have died, moved away, lost their memory of what they originally saw, this meant that nothing can be done, and people should just forget and try to carry on as normal, even if it is over 20 years after the day that was named as bloody Sunday.