The Bloody Sunday

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The Bloody Sunday

January 1972 has produced such different historical interpretations of

what happened on bloody Sunday for a number of different reasons. The

two big divides in what happened on that day are down to politics,

religion and culture and the social society at that time in Ireland.

As we know Ireland was facing many troubles politically and

religiously, there seemed to be many marches and protests against the

discriminate laws that persecuted the catholic people in Ireland. On

the 30th of January 1972 a nationalist demonstration took place

illegally in the centre of Derry, the police and government banned the

march as they thought it would provoke violence.

The march was lead by catholic supporters who were demonstrating

against the protestant-biased law of internment for Catholics. The

British army and also the para troopers opposed the march at the end

of it 14 people were killed, and many were injured all were catholic,

when it came to whom was to blame for these deaths each side blamed

each other and gave different interpretations on what happened on that

brutal day and lead to numerous enquiries one of them lead by Lord

Saville.

The reasons interpretations of events change over time are that all

people witnessing what happened are seeing things from different

views; there views can be reinforced or altered over time, the

interpretations given by a person can be altered by different things

like if their views disagrees with the majority of others, pressure

put on by the opposing argument and could cause a threat to a person

and evidence undermined or re evaluated. Also interpretations can be

reinforced by new evidence, being in the majority and also if there

could be consequences if a person's interpretation changed.

The two main different interpretations there are on what happened on

bloody Sunday are that brought from the catholic community and

protestant community, as there was a divide between the communities

before bloody Sunday there is no doubt that they are going to have

different views on what happened, neither side could be lying in what

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