First bloody Sunday 1920

1. Background

1.1 Guerilla War in the Countryside

The atrocity of the first Bloody Sunday was framed by the Irish War of Independence, lasting from 1919-1921. This war was characterized by its irregular character: The conflict was not between two regular state forces but between guerilla IRA units called the Flying Columns, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and British paramilitary forces named the Black and Tans. The Flying Columns attacked police barracks, military garrisons and convoys; they also captured rural towns in Munster and Connaught, therefore establishing control over the Irish countryside. The RIC and the Black and Tans, which were sent in as support for the RIC, answered with heavy reprisals: looting towns and harassing the local population.

1.2 Intelligence War in Dublin

In addition to the war waged in the countryside, the IRA campaigned in Dublin against the G Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. The G Division’s primary aim was to infiltrate the IRA and inform the local authorities in Dublin Castle about members of the IRA previously unknown to the RIC and the Black and Tans. Furthermore, the IRA attacked British intelligence operatives. One of those attacks against members of the G Division and British intelligence operatives lead to the first Bloody Sunday.

2. 21 November 1921

2.1 Morning

A well-planned IRA operation got underway in the early morning of 21 November. Gunmen were sent out to different parts of Dublin City with orders to kill. The result was the death of 12 British officers, all but one members of a counter-terrorist network. This heavy blow to the British forces was to be retaliated in the afternoon of the same day

2.2 The Gaelic Football Match

A Gaelic football match took place in the Croak Park stadium in Dublin in the afternoon of the same day. The Black and Tans surrounded the place in order to search for IRA suspects; they began to shoot into the crowd, leaving 12 people dead, many of them in the ensuing stampede.

3. Aftermath

Martial law was declared, transporting the conflict into a new dimension. Before Bloody Sunday, it could be argued that the conflict in Ireland was merely a fight of a little Irish Guerilla Army against police and paramilitary forces but afterwards, it was a fight of a little Irish Guerilla Army against the British Nation and its colonial regime. Furthermore, the killing of innocent civilians attending their Sunday pastime inevitably lead to a crisis in colonial government and a questioning of British imperial rule especially by liberal British politicians and publicists like Erskine Childers.

Bibliography

Foster, R.F. Modern Ireland 1600-1972. London: Penguin Press, 1989.

Kee, Robert. The Green Flag A History of Irish Nationaliism. London: Penguin Books, 2000.