Bloody Sunday: What Really Happened?

On the 30th of January 197213 Catholics were killed by British

Paratroopers on the streets of Londonderry. It was the result of an

illegal but originally peaceful march led by the NICRA the civil

rights movement. The march attracted 15000 people all for a similar

cause, to ban Internment. The day became known as Bloody Sunday

because of the terrible events that took place. Although the details

of what actually happened remain undecided, because of the

controversial views of the people that took part in the march.

Internment was a law enforced by the government of N Ireland to try

and keep the Nationalist population under control. It allowed the

Government to put people in prison who were suspected of being

terrorists without trial. Consequently only Catholic's were arrested.

Bloody Sunday happened because of many years of conflict between

Nationalist and Unionist communities. In Northern Ireland nationalists

are almost all Catholics and want a united Ireland with no connections

with Britain. Unionists are almost all Protestant and want to stay

part of the United Kingdom, afraid that if they join the Republic of

Ireland the Catholic Church would take over and their economy would

break down. The street history and segregation between the communities

created a further tension between the two sides. When British Troops

came into N. Ireland in 1969 to bring peace between Nationalists and

Unionists, peace was restored for a few months, but gradually the

British troops went from being the peace makers to the peace

destroyers.

The British army soon clashed with both Nationalists and Loyalists.

The British government handed the control of their army to the Irish

government. This meant that the army was run j...

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...as to what happened on Bloody

Sunday, who fired the first shot, and whether the paratroopers were

just retaliating. Both sides had reasons to hate the other and it

would have been understandable if either of the sides shot first, when

in operation in Ireland the army must have been constantly attacked

making the army want to get their own back, but it was their job and

this was something they should not have done. The Catholics saw the

army as a force that oppressed them and they wanted freedom from that,

feeling bitter about those years they also had plenty of reason to

shoot. After so many years of conflict in Northern Ireland both sides

can not listen to the other, they are so adamant that their own

beliefs are correct. The Saville inquiries' conclusions will probably

never be acceptable to either the army or the original marchers and

their relatives.