Abstract
Bloody Sunday tends to be viewed as a key spark of “the Troubles” and as a switchpoint of Northern Irish politics. On the face of it, this seems plausible enough, but if one were to indulge for a moment in the hypothetical question of “what if Bloody Sunday never happened?” a good case could be made that “the Troubles” would have unfolded anyhow — considering that by its own account the IRA began its violent challenge to British state power before Bloody Sunday.1 At the same time, Bloody Sunday was a godsend to the recruiting sergeants of militant Irish republicanism because what happened in Derry in 1972 articulated with longstanding historical grievances among nationalists towards the British state connected with a long experience of colonialization and imperialism. These grievances were sparked off by Britain’s colonial project and a chronicle of this antagonistic Anglo-Irish colonial relationship helps to provide a socio-historical context to the events of 1972 and to place them in the context of a long history of division and discord.
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© 2010 Brian Conway
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Conway, B. (2010). Bloody Sunday in Historical Perspective. In: Commemoration and Bloody Sunday. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230248670_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230248670_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-31032-6
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