Northen Ireland Coursework

The other side of the story is the side being sympathetic towards the Catholics. This is shown in Source B, another newspaper but this time there is an account from a Catholic and the general feeling of the article is sympathetic towards the Catholics. As this article is from the Guardian which are liberal and socialist who believe in equality and equal right this is not surprising. They would feel that the Soldiers shot victims in cold blood. The language used is very sympathetic to the victims word like “defenceless” are used. So this article is biased towards Catholics and therefore is not as reliable in finding out what actually happened, however it is useful for finding out the views of the Catholics as they generally all thought the same about the soldiers. The general interpretation from the Catholics are that they were fired upon first, however the same goes for the Catholics that were there as the soldiers; things may not have been clear as they would have been frightened and not focused. The Victims’ families would obviously be against the soldiers and believe they gunned down innocent civilians in cold blood. They would be against the government, who were always ‘picking‘ on the Catholics; for example in 1649 Cromwell drove out the Catholics from Ireland, and in 1916 Dublin was shelled by the British during the Easter Rising. There were also the Penal Laws which restricted Catholics Rights and more recently when the Unionists were ambushed by the Protestants, although this was not the governments fault they did very little to stop it. However they would mainly be influenced by their emotions and grief for their lost family members. The General Population of Ireland may feel the same way, as source D shows. Source D is a film however so many of the views expressed are biased to get across a point and to be make the film more dramatic. The writer himself; Jimmy McGovern, is not Irish so he may not be influenced as much by opinions, however he is socialist so his writing may have been influenced by this. He also came from a Poverty stricken background and also has made previous films which stick up for the underdog. One thing about this source is that no-one actually knows who is innocent for sure so it cannot be based on fact and therefore cannot be used a reference for the events that took place on Bloody Sunday. The SDLP party are socialists so would also be on the side of the Catholics, however they would not be as extreme as some Catholics and may not go as far as saying they were completely innocent or the soldiers were completely guilty but they would disapprove of the lack of rights allowing Catholics to peacefully demonstrate. The Republican Paramilitaries would be sympathetic towards the Catholics, and also would be more extreme, though this may be because they thought they could exploit Bloody Sunday and get more recruits, as did happen; IRA recruitment dramatically increased in the aftermath of the troubles. Also they may have felt angry because they would say it was typical for the Catholics to be targeted, for example the execution of the Irish Republicans or the events of the Easter Rising. This would affect there views towards the Army and maybe even make them more extreme than other people. Source C is unclear to determine whether or not it is biased because we are not told the witness’ background, so they could be Catholic and trying to blame it on the soldiers. It is sympathetic towards the victims and says the attacks were pre-meditated.

The Sources A-D show that the events that occurred in Derry on 30 January 1972 produced different historical interpretations generally because of different evidence. There is as of yet not enough sufficient evidence to claim that either party is guilty. So this means both parties stick to their instinct that they’re right. The two different interpretations are influenced by a variety of things, mainly emotions and previous historical events which indicate this kind of thing has happened before and so it is likely that the soldiers are to blame.