Primary Sources In Northern Ireland

Primary sources used by historians
The photographs used in the book, between the pages of 140 and 141. They show pictures of the Shankill butchers gang members, the gang leader or as he was referred to “Mr Butcher” Lenny Murphy and The Windsor bar. This was the meeting place for Murphy’s rivals in the United Volunteer Force (UVF). It is where they planned their murders and where often enough there were also executed.

How are these primary sources used?
Portrays the hardships faced by the people of Northern Ireland, especially the Catholics and the ruthlessness of the Shankill butchers. It also shows a history of organisation as Lenny murphy had picked his gang members based on their hatred of Catholics, level of violence and criminal record.

Lenny Murphy’s involvement and leadership of the Shankill butchers captivated me with this topic. His mindset was captivating and intriguing which was a central feature as to why I chose this topic. His state of mind during the ‘butchering’ was wired to detesting the Catholics, which from reading Dillon’s book seemed to have stemmed from his childhood, during which time he was labelled a Catholic due to his culturally Irish last name ‘Murphy’. Although he was never tested for a psychological disorder it is almost evident that he might have had one due to him showing no remorse for his victims; this is common in psychological disorders such as Schizophrenia and Bi-polar disorder. The ferociousness of this event has shaped the history of Northern Ireland. It is therefore necessary to study and analyse this event to attain a better understanding of the terror faced in everyday life in Northern Ireland and how it highlighted a divide in societies to the wider world. From researching this topic, it is quite clear that there was a significant amount of prejudice towards Catholics during that time. Furthermore, I wanted to find out what motivated the formation of the Shankill butchers and what were the reasons behind the

From my reading of the book, the Shankill butchers: A case study of mass murders by Martin Dillon, I found that Dillon did not want to “apportion blame to either of the communities in Northern Ireland.” Instead I found that Dillon was more conscious of how the Protestant versus Catholic epidemic was going to result in some form of a massacre without trying to allocate blame as to who was at fault or who was the cause. The book itself looks at “the explanations as to why so much time was taken to bring the butchers to justice, why an obscene number of the guilty are still roaming freely completely devoid of any judicial punishment, what is primarily wrong the procedures in place that deal with and protect the people of Northern Ireland from Terrorism and where the responsibility for such faults should