Bloody Sunday: The Paras Lost Control, and the IRA Was the Biggest Winner
The Saville Inquiry spent nearly £200 million to overturn the first inquiry, but what actually accelerated the Northern Ireland process wasn't those 13 deaths — it was the IRA getting a steady stream of money, guns and new recruits ever after.
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The British government really had no way out
In October 1971, Stormont Prime Minister Brian Faulkner flew to London and told Heath that if the bombings continued, the government could collapse within weeks. The British government faced only three options: withdraw the army, abolish Northern Irish self-government and impose direct rule from London, or keep muddling through. Home Secretary Reginald Maudling joked half-seriously about "arming the Protestants and pulling out." But withdrawal would mean sectarian free-for-all, the Republic of Ireland being dragged in, and blowback on the British mainland. So Heath's decision was to keep muddling through, and he had to preserve Faulkner's power, because if Faulkner fell, Britain had no fallback plan.
General Ford wanted to shoot but not to kill
The new British commander in Northern Ireland, Robert Ford, thought local officers were too soft, and regarded the black line marked Free Derry on the military map as a disgrace. On 7 January 1972 he wrote a report saying the only way to restore legal order in Derry was to "shoot selected ringleaders amongst the Derry Young Hooligans," but that to avoid fierce criticism, 0.22-inch ammunition should be used — far less lethal, less likely to kill bystanders by mistake. The hosts sum this up as "I want to shoot people, but not necessarily kill them" — the so-called "salutary violence."
The Paras losing control was structural, not an accident
The Saville Inquiry confirmed that the Paras' claim of being fired on by snipers in the high blocks did not hold up: no witness saw a sniper, and no gun or bullet was ever found afterward. The hosts argue this fits psychological expectations perfectly — send very young soldiers, trained to kill and known for ferocity, to police a march, and tell them they'll be attacked by snipers, and their losing control and opening fire is almost inevitable. They fired more than 100 rounds into the crowd, hitting 26 people and killing 13, six of them only 17 years old, most shot in the back as they ran away.
The biggest winner was the Provisional IRA
Bloody Sunday was not a turning point, but it accelerated a process already under way: the collapse of the government's legitimacy, the total rupture between the British army and the Catholic community, and a surge in recruitment for republican paramilitaries. The hosts quote a young man saying that the events of that day brought more young nationalists into the Provisional IRA than any other single British action, and that from that day money, guns and new recruits poured into the IRA. That young man was Gerry Adams.
Britain had long wanted out; it was others who wouldn't let it
When Heath's cabinet discussed Northern Ireland's future in February 1972, all options were on the table: redrawing the border to merge Catholic areas into the Republic of Ireland, holding a referendum on ending partition, or keeping Northern Ireland nominally in the United Kingdom but with some constitutional link to Ireland — the last being exactly what was eventually achieved. The episode states plainly that Britain would have accepted an arrangement like the Belfast Agreement at any point after 1970. What blocked the peace process was not British stubbornness but the other parties. Heath's Foreign Secretary, the Conservative right-winger Alec Douglas-Home, said outright at the meeting that the way to maximise British interests was to dump Northern Ireland and let the unionists join a united Ireland.
Young men joined paramilitaries because it was fun
The episode points to a badly underrated factor: economics. In many Protestant communities, unemployment among young men was at least 20%, and in some as high as 40% to 50%, with large numbers of men around twenty having left school four or five years earlier with nothing to do — a bit of a Weimar flavour. But another equally underrated reason was that joining these organisations was fun: you could wear a uniform, get a gun, hang out with your mates — like a "violent Boy Scouts." The UDA had none of the IRA's ideological drive; it was essentially vigilantes plus gangsters, living off protection money and hijacking trucks carrying televisions, cigarettes and alcohol. The journalist Peter Taylor, after watching them train, wrote of a group of overweight loyalists gasping their way up ropes and doing clumsy unarmed combat drills; Myers said they were the only terrorist organisation in the world that designed its own regimental uniform with gold badges.
The MI6 officer said he liked the IRA negotiators
After the June 1972 ceasefire, British officials talked with the IRA for three hours at a country house outside Derry. The senior Whitehall civil servant Philip Woodfield reported to Whitelaw that the atmosphere was very casual and relaxed, that the two Irishmen were consistently decent and courteous, offered no grandstanding defence of the past and no attacks on the British government, the British army or any group in Northern Ireland, and responded to every argument with reason and moderation; he believed they genuinely wanted a ceasefire and a permanent end to violence. MI6's Frank Steele went further, saying O'Connell was a quiet, self-possessed, self-disciplined man, and "I know this is unfashionable to say, but I liked him." Steele asked Gerry Adams what he wanted to do, and Adams said he wanted to go to university and get a degree; Steele said nobody was stopping him, as long as he gave up violence. Adams thought for a minute or two and replied: no, I have to help get you British out first.
Bombing the British mainland made withdrawal impossible
The IRA's logic was this: across the British Empire it had been proven that violence makes the British weary and then they leave, and the British public was indeed weary, indifferent, and wanted the whole thing to go away. But the episode points out that this was a complete misreading — once the IRA started bombing pubs in England, coaches on the M62, London and Piccadilly, the British public only hardened, and the British government could never surrender to the perpetrators of violence. The tragic irony is that if a deal had been reached in 1972, the IRA would probably have got what it only got in the late 1990s, and far fewer people would have died; they didn't talk because they believed fighting on would get them a better result. Another reason, rarely said out loud, is that the conflict wasn't yet old, and plenty of people on both sides actually enjoyed it — one IRA member said that maybe you couldn't bomb a million Protestants into a united Ireland, but you could have a good laugh trying.
In their own words · checked verbatim
what happened on bloody sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable it was wrong what happened should never ever have happened
David Cameron4:08
shoot selected ringleaders amongst the derry young hooligans after clear warnings have been issued
Robert Ford20:44
The British Army, despite running amok on Bloody Sunday, don't feel strongly committed enough to an ideological position to do anything comparable to that. They'd much rather just pull out.
there was no way they were ever going to withdraw once the ira attacked britain itself the tragic irony of all this is that if they'd done a deal then in 1972 they'd have probably got what they got in 19 in the late 1990s
maybe you can't bomb a million protestants into united ireland but you could have good fun trying
if you feel there haven't been enough civil war uh on the podcast recently there will be rome's first civil war as marius and sulla start tearing chunks out of each other
Host1:22:30
Figures
| Cost of the Saville Inquiry | nearly £200 million | 5:08 |
| Bloody Sunday death toll | 13 | 3:08 |
| Number hit on Bloody Sunday | 26 | 31:13 |
| Number killed by loyalist paramilitaries in 1972 | about 120 | 1:04:33 |
| Number killed by the British army in 1972 | fewer than 90 | 1:04:33 |
| Number killed by the Provisional IRA in 1972 | nearly 230 | 1:04:33 |
| Total deaths in 1972 | 479 | 1:18:20 |
| Subject of the next episode | The Roman Republic's Marius and Sulla / Rome's first civil war | 1:22:30 |
| Battleground release frequency | every Wednesday | 1:23:32 |
Glossary
- Bloody Sunday
- On 30 January 1972, British army paratroopers opened fire on a civil rights march in Derry, killing 13 people.
- Saville Inquiry
- The British government's second official inquiry into Bloody Sunday, lasting 12 years, which concluded that the Paras lost control and lied.
- Widgery Inquiry
- The first official inquiry, held weeks after the event, which largely exonerated the Paras and was never accepted by the victims' families.
- Free Derry
- An area of Catholic Derry that declared itself self-governing between 1969 and 1972, marked by a black line on military maps.
- salutary violence
- The limited-shooting strategy advocated by General Ford, intended to deter rather than to kill.
- UDA
- A loyalist paramilitary organisation, essentially vigilantes plus gangsters, living off protection money and hijacked trucks.
How to listen
Founders and investors interested in the Northern Ireland conflict, British politics or counterinsurgency — especially suited to anyone who wants to understand how violence backfires on the perpetrator's strategic goals.
The Battleground ad after 1:23:32 can be skipped.