Bloody Sunday in Ireland

Bloody Sunday in Ireland Historical CONTEXT: 2) « The Troubles « was a period of fury in Northern Ireland. It's an important part of Northern Irish history which has began from the late 1960s to the Good Friday Agreements of 1998. 3) From the late 1960s to 1998, in connection to "The Troubles", over 3000 Northern Irish citizens (mostly civilians) were murdered and others were wounded. While theses number of deaths isn't huge 4) Catholics and Protestants fought because Catholics wanted Irish unification meanwhile Protestants wanted the union with England. 5) The Troubles may seem a simply conflict between Catholics and Protestants but it's much more complex. A lot of people think it's about Britain's domination of Northern Ireland. In fact, the conflict and tensions in Northern Ireland is old (for centuries) engaged questions of nationality, class, culture and religion. These two communities were separated by the barrier of religion and culture. 6) Nowadays, some concrete signs of the conflict are present. In Northern Ireland there are neighbourhood are delimited by barriers which split the tenants. The extreme loyalties and wounded pride of Northern Irish from centuries have established a society of many walls. The communities are still divided but it's better than before. Guardian: Bloody Sunday in photographs In this photo, we can see a girl stands next to a British soldier on Bloody Sunday. The soldier is protecting him from riot's attacks. The girl and the soldier take the right side whereas the protesters take the left side. The girl is surprised and in my opinion, the photographer wanted to join the pureness (with the little girl) and the badness (with the soldier). Moreover, a holy connotation may be supposed thanks to the ray of sunshine which is directly to the girl's feet. The fact to associate a child with a soldier is to stress the situation. To conclude, we have the impression the soldier is thinking or he hesitates. For this photo, three elements are presents: barbed wire barricade in the foreground, soldiers in the middle and habitation in the background. Civil right demonstrators are blocked to their homes by barricade and the army. A tank supports the soldiers. The photographer may have wanted to show that the soldiers were the core of the event by placing the army in the center of the photograph. The soldiers split the image in 2 parts. In my opinion the elements emphasized is the nonsense, the absurdity of the situation. The army intervenes in a demonstration and block the habitations. Moreover, I think the soldiers don't like this situation. In this picture, a priest appears in order to give the last rites to a demonstrator shot to death during the Bloody Sunday. The rule of 1/3 is present: the priest takes the one-third of this photo, the dead too and the person who may be his friend too. The priest is on the right side, the dead is on the middle and the friend is on the left side. I think the photographer wanted to remember the Irish religion showing a priest giving the last rites to the dead. Besides, he wanted to show that the dead is present and with the friend, the grief, the pain accompanies the death and emotion is a consequence of this protestation. The victims: profiles of the 14 people who died All the victims weren't armed and the majority have been killed by a single bullet. This shows that British soldiers have fired intentionally. The victims are mainly young because among the 14 victims there are 7 teenagers. They were victims of violence. They didn't fight against the soldiers because some of victims tried to hide, running away from soldiers or others to help people. Moreover, some sources say that the majority of the victims were unarmed during the facts.