The Irish Tricolour Flag, a symbol for Nationalists

The Union Flag, a symbol for Unionists

The current conflict in Northern Ireland exists between nationalists, who want to see a united Ireland and who are predominantly Catholic by religion, and unionists, who want Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom and who are predominantly Protestants. Nationalists who support the use of violence to achieve their means are known as Republicans, and Unionists who do so are known as Loyalists, although not all those who would describe themselves as Republicans or Loyalists support political violence. The British army has been deployed continuously in Northern Ireland because of the conflict since 1970; it had not made any such claim at the time of Bloody Sunday.

On 9 August 1971, the unionist government of Northern Ireland (known as the Stormont government), with the support of the British government, introduced internment without trial. By the end of 1971 around 900 people, virtually all of them Nationalists, were imprisoned , in violation of international standards on the right to a fair trial. At the same time that internment was introduced, a six-month ban on public demonstrations was imposed under emergency legislation in force at the time. NICRA, formed in 1967 to combat the widespread political and social discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland, which is one of the roots of the conflict, called a demonstration in Derry for Sunday, 20 January 1972, as much in protest against the ban on the right to demonstrate as a protest against internment itself.

Excerpt from "Eyewitness Bloody Sunday", edited by Don Mullan