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Q2 Watch the TV documentary “Remember bloody Sunday” and study sources A-M

There are conflicting interpretations as to what happened on 30 January 1972.How do you account for these differences?

On 30 January 1972 a march took place in Londonderry, the march was against internment. The march was supposed to be a peaceful march but ended up in tragedy and thirteen civil rights marchers died.

There are conflicting interpretations of what happened on bloody Sunday but they are not all factual. Some sources say it was a peaceful march some say it was a riot. Some people think the IRA shot first some think the British army shot first. Some people say the 13 died were innocent civilians while others say they were armed hooligans. Some people thought it was a controlled operation, some people say it was chaos.

All the different interpretations or views create a massive problem for the historians to know the truth. They have two sides of the story therefore the historians do not know what exactly happened on Bloody Sunday.

Watching the start of the documentary tells us that the documentary is sympathetic to the marchers because at the start it focuses in on one of the grave of a civilian and it says the name followed by murdered. This indicates that the documentary is in favour of the marchers. This will create a problem for historians to analyse the documentary.  

Denis, Ida McKinney, The narrator, American school text book (source D), Dr Raymond Mclean all believe that it was set out to be a peaceful march. Ida McKinney thought it was a peaceful march because she even packed her husband with sandwiches which shows she or her husband thought it was going to be a peaceful march. The narrator also thought it was a peaceful march he says in the documentary that “there was an air of carnival about the march” this proves that he expected no trouble. Doctor Raymond Mclean also thought it was going to be a peaceful march, we know this because in the TV documentary he says “I left all my medical gear in the car” this suggests that he thought there was no need for his medical gear because he thought it was going to be a peaceful march. Source D also says “the march was generally good humoured” which again put forward that they thought the march was going to be peaceful. They say this because they packed sandwiches and food for the March rather than packing weapons.

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The people who thought it was going to be a riot are Colonel Dalzell Payne, Dereck Wilford, Adjutant, Platoon sergeant. These are all people with links to the army. So they may be sympathetic to the army. Colonel Dalzell Payne says in source E “the Londonderry march would cause problems” he says this because of what happened in the past. From past experience he gathers that this march is going to be a riot. He suggests that it was definitely going to be a riot. He says this from his experience in the past In the documentary his tone ...

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