Transcript Bloody Sunday

‘The shooting barely took thirty minutes but the impact was seismic.’
Bloody Sunday : the background
How was Bloody Sunday possible?
Was it a tragedy waiting to happen?
Ireland in Schools
Durham Pilot Scheme
Sound clip: From ‘Ordinary Sunday’ by Athenrye
When: 30 January 1972
Where: Londonderry/Derry, Northern Ireland
Occasion: Civil rights demonstration against internment
What happened: 13 civilians were shot dead by British paratroopers*
* A fourteen shooting victim died later
Consequences: Fall of Stormont
The key elements
Catholic insecurity
in Belfast in 1969
Revival of the IRA
Increased violence
Government policy
Inadequate political
response
Reliance on security
response
In the background
Protestants
British government
Irish Republic
X
Burning of Bombay Street
August 1969
• Bogside Catholics asked Belfast Catholics to distract
government forces
• Belfast Protestants went on the attack
• Catholics felt in need of protection, not then provided by
the IRA (‘I Ran Away’)
X
The burning of Bombay Street was the
oft repeated and most regarded
underlying justification for the IRA’s
claim to be needed as the only defence
force that the Catholics of Belfast could
rely on in dire emergency to protect their
lives and homes.
The bulk of the Catholic population
accepted this claim, and justification of
the IRA.
Although many of them thoroughly
disliked the bombing and murdering by
the IRA, they were not prepared to cooperate with the forces of the Crown to
destroy the IRA, just in case another
Bombay Street situation might arise.
The commanding officer of a British battalion that
served in the Falls in 1972-73.
Click below to see a video of Catholics recalling the impact of
the events of 1969 on attitudes towards the IRA.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=2491616150348860730
IRA
• IRA regrouped in late in 1969 and in 1970 split into
– Official IRA: nationalism & socialism
– Provisional IRA: hard-line nationalism, dominant in Belfast
• Emphasis now on Irish unity rather than civil rights
• Provisional’s adopted a ‘ruthless and savage’ campaign
of violence
– To destroy Northern Ireland
– To force British to withdraw completely from Ireland
• Provoked Protestant paramilitary reaction, eg., UVF
Click below for a video of Protestants recalling their response to the events of 1969-70.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-518458458107211855
Escalating violence
Death toll
1969
13
1970
25
1971
174
Government response
1. Reform
Positive
• Implemented full civil rights reform programme
Negative
• Did not touch people in the ghetto areas
– Neglected local needs
– ‘Lost the competition for government’ to RC Church & IRA
• Too much emphasis on security & the British army to
maintain the rule of law
Government response
2. Security
1. Reliance on British
army
2.Searches for arms
July 1970 onwards
3.Internment
August 1971 - 1975
Searches for arms
July 1970 onwards
Searches
• July 1970:
34 hour curfew in Catholic Falls to allow searches
• 1971:
17,262 house searches
• Nov. 1971 - Jan. 1972:
1,183 houses searched; arms found in 47
Consequences
• Increased violence
• Further alienated Catholics
Poor intelligence
‘Without inside
information as to
the exact
whereabouts of
terrorist weapons
and documents, the
security forces
have little option
but top search on
the vaguest
suspicions –
nothing is more
certain to alienate
the population.
I felt that I was invading the man's home. I felt guilty
and ashamed. The place was saturated with CS
[tear] gas. Children were coughing. I’m talking now
about toddlers, kids of three, four, five.
. . . I think the major effect of the Falls curfew was
that it gave the community in the Lower Falls the
opportunity to see the IRA as their saviours and they
saw the British Army as the enemy, a foreign
occupying force…
I didn't see myself as a foreign invader and I don't
think they did either up until the curfew.
A private in the army describing the effect of the Falls curfew of July
1970.
Click below for video of 1970 searches.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=482947
1716049692286
Click below for video of 1971 searches.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=5592953
899154790723
Internment, 1 August 1971
Aim
• To smash the IRA & Protestant paramilitaries
Arguments for
• Precedent - helped defeat earlier IRA campaigns
• To calm Protestant fears
• To make best use of limited security resources
Click to start video of Prime Minister Brian Faulkner announcing the introduction of internment.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-9601136114687418
Arguments against Internment
• Circumstances very different
– earlier largely rural, 1971 largely urban
• Outdated intelligence about IRA
membership
• Conditions in interment camps violated
civil liberties
• Camps IRA recruiting ground
One elderly man
was arrested by
British Soldiers
and was proud of
it.
But he told them
he had not been
active in the IRA
since the War of
Independence.
Internment: statistics
4 am, 9 August 1971
• 350 arrested, all Catholics but 2
– 116 released after interrogation
First six months
• 2,357 arrested
– 1,600 released after interrogation
Total interned
• 1,900
– 1,874 Republicans
– 107 Loyalists.
Treatment in interment camps
Hooding
Internees were kept fully
hooded except when
interrogated or in rooms by
themselves.
Sleep
It was general policy to
deprive men of sleep during
early days of operation.
Noise
When internees were held
together, they were subjected
to a continuous hissing noise.
Internment: consequences
1. Did not smash IRA, but increased recruitment
2. Increased violence
3. Further alienated Catholic community
‘The final outrage in a system of law & order which had been
pressing heavily on it for years’
4. Undermined position of SDLP & others willing to work
with reformed government
Resurrected civil protest
Click here for a report of aftermath of internment.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=71697355
58159217552
Click here for a republican video on internment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPz-Bee4RE0
What lay behind Catholic alienation?
Catholic areas
bore the brunt
of emergency
measures
Feeling whole
ordinary
process of law
continued to
be weighted
against them
How justified was this feeling?
• Authorities continued to regard Catholic
violence more seriously than Protestant
violence, as more dangerous to the state
– Catholic rioters charged with riotous behaviour with
mandatory minimum six months in prison
– Protestants charged with only disorderly behaviour a fine or even a suspended sentence
• Tendency of courts and jurors to accept the
evidence, however nebulous, of the security
forces in disputed cases
One Catholic
priest said,
‘Our people
are afraid of
the courts;
they believe
the judicial
system as it
operates in the
blatantly
sectarian
condition of life
here is loaded
against them.’
Civil protest against internment
Organisations involved
•
SDLP
•
NICRA
Social Democratic & Labour Party
Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
Methods
•
Campaign of civil disobedience
– Rates & rent strike
– Schools boycott
– Withdrawal from public bodies
– Alternative Assembly in Dungannon, 26 October 1971
•
Protest marches against internment
– Including Londonderry, 30 January 1972
Why did the government continue
with the policy?
• Protestant pressure
to maintain hard line
• Best use of limited
resources
Click below to start video of Protestant rally.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=1015418340058331423
What was the attitude of the army
at the beginning of 1972?
• Privately critical of security policies
unaccompanied by political initiatives
• Felt exposed - targets for IRA, etc.
– Deaths
6 Feb. 1971: First British soldier killed
Soldiers killed before & after internment
1971
Soldiers
April-July
Aug.- Nov.
4
30
• Paratroops determined not to be
sitting ducks
‘Bloody Sunday’ cannot be
seen in isolation. It was a
tragedy waiting to happen. For
many months there had been
endless rioting in the city.
Every day, at tea time, there
would be a confrontation at the
corner of William Street and
Rossville Street between
soldiers guarding the entrance
to the city centre and the
rioters operating out of ‘Free
Derry’.
Day after day soldiers would
stand there being pelted by
rioters and the stone throwers
would get in plenty of practice.
The junction was known, with
good reason, as ‘aggro corner’.
Peter Taylor, Provos, p. 114
Lt.-Col. Wilford’s priority
‘that his men stayed alive’
In my view, this was a war. If people are shooting at you, they're
shooting not to wound you but to kill you. Therefore we had to behave
accordingly.
We blacked our faces, we took our berets off, or at least our badges
from them, and put camouflage nets over our heads. We always wore
our flak jackets and when we moved on the streets, we moved as if we
were moving against a well-armed, well-trained army.
Now that might have been a compliment to the IRA but it wasn't really.
It was a compliment to my soldiers. I wanted my soldiers to stay alive
and I actually said to them, 'you will not get killed’. That was really my
coda throughout my period of command.
What were the consequences of
Bloody Sunday?
• Increased tension & violence
– IRA membership & activities increased
– Became burning Catholic/nationalist grievance e.g., song ‘Bloody Sunday’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tWOo7IxZLM
– Protestant backlash began, increased by ‘Bloody Friday’, 21 July 1972
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=f59_PO7fbxA
• Inquiries
– Controversial Widgery report, 1972, did not blame paratroopers
– Saville Inquiry, 1998, yet to report
• International criticism, especially in America & Irish Republic
• British government patience exhausted
– Suspended Stormont, 24 March 1972
– Established direct rule of NI by Westminster
Click below for video on Bloody Sunday confrontation from starter.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=6105142505054549030
Click below for video on immediate aftermath of Bloody Sunday.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-6011524456321799973
What does the IRA campaign, 1969-72, say
about the effectiveness of political violence?
Pros
• Brought down Stormont
– Undermined what little Protestant & Unionist belief there was in the efficacy of
reform
– Resultant security policy ruined any chance the reforms had of creating
confidence in the justice of the Stormont regime & giving it legitimacy in the eyes
of the minority
Cons
• Did not achieve aim of driving Britain from NI & uniting Ireland
• High price paid
– Re-inforced & deepened sectarian divide
– Cost in human suffering
Start again
End