Penal law number one:
“No catholic may bequeath his lands as a whole but must divide it amongst his sons. But if one son became protestant he will inherit the whole estate, no Catholics can buy or lease for more than 31 years”.
This meant catholic’s have lost ownership f their land and they are only tenants.
By 1727 Catholics probably felt annoyed, distraught and bullied into what someone else believed. This is different from how they felt in 1500 as they had rights then and they were in power, now they have lost all power and had only the basic rights.
Irish people were so fed up as a result of the penal laws that they fought back. They fought back in two ways, the first way was violently, they did not stop, and killing people was not a threat, where as the other way was a parliamentary war, but needed no violence but this was not successful. After the leader of the violent group was awfully murdered, people of Ireland gave up waiting for the parliamentary group to return from the war and went to the violent group. That is when Sinn Fein arrived.
While the Catholics fought for independence the Protestants wanted to stay united with Britain. Because of this they were known as Unionist. Some nationalist were furious that Ireland had been split up and were determined to fight for a united Ireland. After 1920 in the south, Northern Ireland had no right to exist, they were going to be proper Catholics; they also did not want a king so they replaced him with a president. Ireland did not fight during WW2 as they were nothing to do with England; this is when Ireland became a republic. However, in the north there was street fighting against the Catholics and the Protestants and the unionists took control of the NI parliament. It was very discriminatory as the Protestants got the best jobs and they set up their own armed police force. Suddenly the trouble broke out in the north because in 1969 there was violent fighting against the Catholics and the Protestant police. This also led to terrorism from both sides. Britain sent their army this then turned into a mass violent game of pacman with illegal imprisonment.
I’m now going to look at some sources to see if they can give us any information that explains why the troubles broke out in 1969.The first source I am going to look at is, Source G. This source is a picture drawn and painted by an artist, however there is a few problems with his source. The source may not be correct because it’s more likely the artist was not an eye witness and was probably painted by an image given from another written source. Also it was painted by a Protestant artist so this could infer that it was painted to make the Catholics look bad. Although this source is unreliable we can still use it as it tells us that in 1641, already the Irish and the British hated each other and it all started with violence. This source is useful again to linking us back to the troubles in 1969 because it shows us how much the two sides hated each other and were willing to use propaganda to win.
The second source I looked at was source E. |This source shows a nineteenth century Protestant cartoon showing Erin (Ireland) bound in ropes by a Catholic priest. The woman symbolises Ireland and she is a Catholic. She looks solemn, sad and like a slave. She looks imprisoned and out of control of her life. The male is a Catholic and symbolises the whole Catholic Church. He is a Catholic priest and he looks very rich, quite stern and looks like he holds the power. The way that the finger has been positioned makes it look like he is telling her off. He is definitely dominating the situation. Both of these people are generic comments which mean they symbolise something else. This source is a cartoon so it is not a picture of reality. It is usage of propaganda and it’s also quite unreliable in telling you the truth of the situation. The government would have probably have hired an English protestant artist to convey this picture and it wanted people to see things form a certain point of view. I think this cartoon was created to make the Catholics look bad and the Protestants look better. The English government are purposefully trying to make Britain anti-catholic. This shows us that the English attitude still holds us a lot of hatred and distrust and that the English government are prepared to lie. This cartoon was made about 100 years before The Troubles broke out and it may have been along time before it all started, but it maybe more accurate than information for 400 years before. It isn’t accurate because things have most probably changed between one hundred years, although, there could have been things that happened in the nineteenth century that have lead to reasons for why the troubles broke out. The cartoon is suggesting that in the nineteenth century, the Catholic Church held all the power and they are enslaving the normal Catholic people. From my knowledge of Irish history, this was not true. Really, it was the Protestants in England that held the power as they made the penal laws.
The third Source I am going to examine is Source D. Source D is written autobiography written by Bernadette Devlin, although she was an Irish catholic explaining her school days her opinion on the troubles between the Catholics and the Protestants is very balanced but it is still only one persons point of view. I believe that Bernadette Devlin made this because people did want to know about the happenings in Ireland, they wanted the truth. We can use this source because it was written by someone who was involved in the Troubles and understood why the Catholics were angry. Although there was this it also showed that Irish school children were brought up to be patriotic and nationalists she still strongly believes that Protestants cannot be classed as Irish. This source helps us try and solve out the troubles because it shows us why young catholic people got involved in the civil rights March’s etc however it does not explain the final answer.
The fourth source I am going to examine is source F. This source is a map from a school text book showing Gerrymander (the rigging of voting boundaries) in Derry in 1966. The population in Derry was 30,379 of which 20000 was Catholics and the rest were Protestants. The map showed the unfairness of the election in 1966.There are no problems with the source as it is more facts than opinions, This source was created by a school textbook publisher. They made this source to teach young people to understand the troubles. This source suggests that the Protestants were scared of losing their power which is why they have to rig the votes. This source is the most reliable out of all the sources I have examined because it is pure statistics. It is also very useful because it was created at the correct time period and it explained why the Catholics felt they did not have equal rights but could not change anything because of the voting system.
The next source is Source H. This is a picture of The Royal Ulster Constabulary Protestant Police in Northern Ireland. They are attacking Catholic Civil Rights marchers with batons however the Catholics are unarmed. The picture was taken in 1968. We can see this source is reliable as it is a photograph so the sequence of events had to have happened but we do not know what happened before and after the picture as it shows only a snapshot of time. The source is also very useful as it was taken at the correct time and shows why the Catholic people were so scared of the Protestant Police.
Source I is also a photograph and is taken at a Civil rights march. We can tell this because there are large banners. The banner says “One house, One man, One job” This is what the Catholics’ wanted everyone to be able to have. Even though it is a peaceful march with banners not weapons they are still being stopped by the Police. It is a real life snap shot so it is reliable for the time but we do not know what happened before or after. The source is useful as again it was taken at the right time and show s another reason why the Catholics were scared of the Protestants, even the right to peaceful protest was being blocked.
In conclusion I can see that all of the sources give a little bit of information but do not give enough sufficient evidence to explain why the troubles first broke out in 1969. When looking at the sources I found that they were all bias as they were either drawn or taken by one or the other religion. However, source F was not bias as it was drawn based of government statistics. This would mean that it was fair and the statistics were ‘pure’. To answer the question we must look at both long and short term evidence, most of the sources are long term however, the last two are not. Though the last two sources are short term pieces of evidence they do not tell us exactly why the troubles broke out and so do not answer the question. We can only see the fury of the Catholics heading up to the event over a long period of time. So as a conclusion having looked at all the sources I do not think there is sufficient evidence to explain why the troubles broke out in 1969.
In this second part of my coursework I am going to try and explain why there are so many interpretations of what happened on “Bloody Sunday”. I am going to take a look at three sources and try to judge whether these sources can help me piece together why there are so many different variations about what happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’. However, there could be some difficulty doing so as some of these sources can be biased and written from one person’s point of view and this must be taken into account when looking at the sources.
‘Bloody Sunday’ was a result of the fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland. The people of Northern Ireland were all stunned by what happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’ and it was seemed to be blamed on the English Army, but is this a right accusation? Consequently, what really annoyed the Catholics was that, although the Catholics had more population than the Protestants, the Protestants always won the election. Obviously this was done by cheating; this was called ‘Gerrymandering’ where the Protestants rigged the votes. What this equalled out too in Ireland was angry Catholics who were fed up of not being able to have their say and their necessary rights who then went out on civil right marches. This then brought the police into it who then started getting violent which led to the IRA fighting back so that the Catholics were going to win. As you can imagine, this then tuned into terrible, murderous and bloody riots. Then of course the English got involved so they ended up sending their army in who start getting angry and locking Irish Catholics up without out trial, known as internment. When the other Irish Catholics found out about the events that were taking place they took the Catholics side and then started marching with them. Before you know the whole of Ireland was involved and taking sides and on a march. This happened on 30th of March 1972. However, the police brutality cause unlawful killing of 13 Irish Catholics who then were remembered for the rest of Irish history so therefore this day is known as ‘Bloody Sunday’
On 30th January 1972 the event ‘Bloody Sunday’ took place. This was when 13 innocent civil rights marchers were shot but is this correct? On 30th January 1972 Irish Catholics had had enough of internment and ‘Gerrymandering’ they decided to go on a march for civil rights. Then suddenly the police got involved with the march and it was said that the police were getting assaulted by rocks but no nail or petrol bombs! So as a back up the army were sent in. The army were sent in but heard a shot of a gun from the protestant side, However the army did not fight back until 10 minutes later so really was the army’s fight back and misconduct all about that one shot?
Since ‘Bloody Sunday’ there has been two Enquiries about what happened on the 30th January 1972 .The first one was written by Lord Chief Justice: Lord Widgery. Lord Widgery was demanded to write a report about what happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’ by the Prime Minister Edward Heith. Lord Widgery was part of the Establishment and the government, his Enquiry started on the 31st January 1972 and finished on 17th April 1972. What he put in his report after the Enquiry was that that the army were just doing there job although he did put that some of the soldiers were being wreck less and some were being respectful soldiers but there was on big flaw with this Report and that was how did he collect all his evidence and interviewed people in just 11 weeks? ON the other hand before Lord Widgery was Lord Chief Justice ha was in the British army, This does not look good when writing a report about the army because it could show that the Lord Widgery’ report was biased , And infact this is what most Irish people and witnesses said and even said it was just a ‘whitewash’. On the other hand this is good for the British soldiers as it was making them look good.
After Tony Blair was voted Prime Minister after being Prime Minister he had demanded a new Enquiry written about what happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’ The Enquiry was held out by Lord Saville. His Enquiry started January 1998 and is due to finish in 2009; this second Enquiry was needed because Tony Blair thought that Lord Widgery had missed out lots and lots of witnesses also Lord Widgery did not interview any of the injured people involved and thirdly there were three more types of new evidence 1. New eye witnesses 2. New Forensic Evidence and 3. New Medical Evidence.
