During the 1960s, disadvantaging practices regarding housing, employment opportunities, the right to vote, and education were commonplace for Catholics across Northern Ireland (Beggan 2006, 63). With the IRA in “retirement,” nationalists took to the streets to protest and demonstrate. The state had two options: to repress the movement or politically open up to their demands (Beggan 2006, 63). Instead of using peaceful methods, the state pushed back violently, with actions such as republican-only internment without trial and opening fire on marches, leading to events like Bloody Sunday. These became the “consequences” for the civil rights movement, leading to this idea that fighting for equality could possibly get oneself killed. These circumstances were similar to many other movements across the globe, such as the black civil rights movement in America and the casualties that it wrought. The public, international view of the republican plight during this time was sympathetic, with many siding with the Catholics. There were comparisons of Bloody Sunday to the Sharpeville Massacre, and the prime minister of Ireland called it “an unwarranted attack on unarmed civilians” (Beggan 2006, 72; Fackles 1980, 28). There were photographs and televised accounts of the bloodshed, media with pictures of injured children and corpses being broadcasted around the globe. For a little while, the international support (in countries such as the United States with large Irish populations) of the insurgency was high, Many felt empathy for the nationalist marchers who were gunned down when protesting for their rights, and the injuries on the unionist side, while not as significant, were diminished in the face of the collective victimhood of the Catholics.

When the IRA returned in the late 1960s to combat discrimination with force and terrorism, the narrative did not immediately change. In a ten-year span, the grievances of the nationalist community had increased drastically. The rational solution morphed into fighting violence with violence, all under the logic that if the Catholics were given the same equal rights that the Protestants already had, the conflict would decrease or end completely. The unionists (police, government officials, even civilians) now became the victims, as they were targeted in the IRA’s attacks. On the other side, while many nonviolent nationalists were being unfairly interned, they were rarely killed. One IRA bombing in March 1972 killed two young women and injured seventy others. A senior doctor remembers how young the victims were, how they weren’t paratroopers or government officials. In a newspaper report, the horrors were described, noting how one of the girls “planned to marry” (McKittrick and McVea 2002, 78). The violence against the nationalist community on Bloody Sunday garnered support, but the violent attacks in response to the injustices from that event and many others made IRA seem more like terrorists. Freedom fighters wouldn’t be targeting and killing young women preparing to get married. To many, it seemed as if the IRA was killing without reason, as the conflict reported mo