“Bloody Sunday was a defining moment in the Troubles. As well as generating huge emotion, it also screamed a political challenge”

What was the mood in Northern Ireland before the events of Bloody Sunday?

It was very fraught. The Troubles [conflict between mostly Protestant unionists (loyalists), pushing for Northern Ireland to remain within the UK, and largely Catholic nationalists hoping for the region to become part of the Republic of Ireland] had begun in earnest in 1969. Nobody knew how long they would last or what their extent would be, but by the early seventies it was clear that things were very, very difficult.

Bloody Sunday happened at the very beginning of 1972, which proved to be horrendous – the worst year of the Troubles, with