Why have the events of ‘Bloody Sunday’ Produced such different interpretations?
On January 30, 1972, soldiers from the British Army's 1st Parachute Regiment opened fire on unarmed and peaceful civilian demonstrators in the Bog side, Derry, Ireland, near the Rossville flats, killing 13 and wounding a number of others. One wounded man later died from illness attributed to that shooting. The march was to banish internment from the streets of Ireland.
The march, which was called to protest internment, was "illegal" according to British government authorities. Internment without trial was introduced by the British government on August 9, 1971. The British-government-appointed Widgery Tribunal found soldiers were not guilty of shooting dead the 13 Civilians in cold blood.
It was a 4-year period of increased violence that began in 1968 and led up to the bloody events of January 30, 1972. On October 5, 1968 in Derry Northern Ireland, police turned what was a peaceful civil rights demonstration into a small riot. Overwhelming evidence points to an unprovoked attack by the police on the demonstrators with batons. The demonstrators retaliated with stones and petrol bombs. In 1969, England sent in troops to quell riots that had erupted over the inequality. By 1970, a resurrected PIRA was carrying out attacks against the British troops (Byrne, 2001). It is important to note that this escalation in Irish Republican Army (IRA) violence preceded the events of Bloody Sunday.