Turmoil in the North: Internment and Bloody Sunday
Ireland’s accession to the EEC was not enough to convince the Irish people that Lynch and Fianna Fáil were providing good government. The fallout
from the Arms
Crisis and the divisions that had emerged in the party made voters anxious. The opposition parties were also able to use the Arms Crisis for their political advantage by claiming
that there
was support for the IRA within Fianna Fáil.
British troops lead away demonstrators on Bloody Sunday.
The violence in Northern Ireland during the early 1970s compounded the government’s difficulties. Violence had escalated to the degree that there were riots on the streets and pitched gun battles between the IRA and the British Army. Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner, with the consent of British Prime Minister Edward Heath, introduced internment in August 1971. The internment of nationalists – no unionists were interned initially – inflamed the nationalist community even more.
On Sunday 30 January 1972 an estimated crowd of 15,000 people took part in a civil rights march in Derry calling for an end to internment. The march was in direct breach of a government ban. Soldiers of the British Parachute Regiment sealed off parts of the city to contain the protest. After being pelted with stones and other missiles, the British soldiers opened fire on the crowd, resulting in the deaths of 14 civilians as well as seriously injuring 14 more. The events of Bloody Sunday led to huge unrest throughout Ireland. On 2 February the British embassy in Dublin was burned to the ground by a large group of protestors.
The British embassy burns in Dublin. 444 LEAVING CERTIFICATE HISTORY
