The Government of Northern Ireland Act (1920) created Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Six counties largely on the north-east of the island with a strong unionist majority constituted Northern Ireland. The remaining 26 counties were largely nationalist and republican. Contestation and conflict dominated the new Northern state.
By the 1960’s the Unionist-dominated system of government was challenged by the emergence of a social movement focused on equal citizenship for Catholics in Northern Ireland and an end to discrimination. Campaigning against discrimination in jobs, housing and voting rights led to the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in 1967, an organisation committed to peaceful political protests to advance its political objectives. Tension between civil rights activists and the British state escalated and on 12 August 1969 violence erupted. British Troops were deployed in Northern Ireland (their presence to continue throughout the Troubles). Inter-communal violence plagued the early period of the Troubles and by 1971 the Stormont government in Northern Ireland introduced internment.
The mistreatment of internees, recently highlighted by the experiences of the ‘hooded men’, sparked anger and further alienation from a state, which by this point had been cemented as illegitimate in the eyes and minds of many nationalists and republicans. The NICRA also took to the streets in a series of protest marches. It was during one these peaceful protests in Derry on 30 January 1972 that the event, now known as ‘Bloody Sunday’, happened. On that day Civil Rights protestors and marchers were campaigning across Northern Ireland. In the evening as the march was petering out, British troops fired shots into the marchers. Thirteen innocent men and children were killed on that day and one more, John Johnston died four months later as a result of his injuries sustained on that Sunday. A total of 479 people died in 1972; it was to become Northern Ireland’s bloodiest year.[
In 1998 the British Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed Judge Saville to head a commission to investigate the events of Bloody Sunday. In June 2010 the British Prime Minister David Cameron announced to Parliament that the findings of the Saville Report unequivocally attribute responsibility for the deaths of the 14 civilians to the British troops. The British Prime Minister accepted that the actions of the British troops were wrong, ‘unjustified and unjustifiable’. On behalf of the British government and the country he apologised to the families of those killed, saying he was ‘deeply sorry’ for the deaths on Bloody Sunday.
David Cameron, Bloody Sunday: ‘Unjustified and unjustifiable’ (15 June 2010):
David Cameron Apology on Bloody Sunday
BBC News, 15 June 2010
This is the full transcript of the statement Prime Minister David Cameron made to MPs in the House of Commons on the day the Bloody Sunday report was published
Families Reaction to Bloody Sunday Apology
BBC News, 15 June 2010
Families of those shot dead on Bloody Sunday in 1972 have reacted to the Saville report, which has finally cleared the names of their relatives
UK Government Debate on receipt of Saville Report
UK Parliament, 15 June 2010
Text of parliamentary debate following release of the Saville report
UK House of Lords Response
UK House of Lords, 16 June 2010
Lord Strathclyde repeated the Government statement on the Saville Inquiry report in the House of Lords on 15 June
Irish Taoiseach In Dail Debate
Dáil Éireann, 23 June 2010
Transcript from the Dáil Éireann (Irish Lower Parliamentary House) debating the findings of the Saville Report
Irish Government Response to Apology
Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 15 June 2010
‘Today a great wrong has been corrected’ says Minister Micheál Martin
Where’s my apology? MP McCrea in House of Commons Debate
UK Parliament, 6 July 2010
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP), ‘I fear that successive Governments, through this £192 million inquiry and the high-wire spectacular response from the Prime Minister in front of the world’s media, have left the feeling that there is a hierarchy of victims from our troubled past, and that brings only further division and misunderstanding’UK Labour Party Response
Shaun Woodward, Labour’s Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, speech to Labour Party Conference 2010
Army Backs Apology on Bloody Sunday
Belfast Telegraph, 15 June 2010
David Cameron’s apology for the Army’s role on Bloody Sunday has been endorsed by Chief of the General Staff General Sir David Richards
Obama praises Cameron Statement
Irish Republican News, 24 June 2010
US President Barack Obama has told British prime minister David Cameron that his Bloody Sunday apology was ‘historic’ and would contribute to reconciliation in the north
Interview with Rev. Ian Paisley
Independent, 9 January 2014
‘Cameron was right to ‘tell the truth’ on Bloody Sunday: Introducing and older more mellow Rev. Ian Paisley’Bloody Sunday Inquiry
Link to The Bloody Sunday Inquiry website
CAIN Database on Bloody Sunday
Key Events – ‘Bloody Sunday’, Derry 30 January 1972
Hidden Truths Bloody Sunday 1972
Images from Bloody Sunday photo exhibition
Northern Ireland Democratic Unionist Party reaction to reparations and further process
DUP, 11 November 2014
DUP MP Gregory Campbell has said there can be absolutely no justification for a further police investigation into Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday prosecution charges unlikely
BBC News, 16 June 2010
A lawyer representing British soldiers involved in the Bloody Sunday inquiry has insisted the report’s findings did not open the door for prosecutionsBloody Sunday March
Website of the Bloody Sunday March Committee
Troops Out Movement: Bloody Sunday
Troops Out Movement ‘campaign for the removal of the British establishment from the north of Ireland and for self-determination for the Irish people as a wholeMadden & Finucane Solicitors
Madden & Finucane were appointed to represent the majority of the families of the people murdered and the people wounded at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry. They ‘are continuing the fight for justice for the families of Bloody Sunday, including pressing the Public Prosecution Service for prosections against soldiers and we are negotiating with the Ministry of Defence for compensation’