The Crown references Bloody Sunday but failed to show the details about one of the most significant events in the history of Northern Ireland.
The Crown Season 4 begins the story in 1979, with Lord Mountbatten’s assassination by the hands of the IRA and the Mass Protest and Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland. Although The Crown loses some of the most important details and the episode ‘Gold Stick’ majorly highlights the tension and Violence at the time of trouble. The Crown failed to dig deep in the story of bloody Sunday as it’s the horrible mass shooting Northern Ireland has ever seen. The thesis of “Gold Stick” emphasizes how out of touch the royal family was in regards to The Troubles, contrasting the formality of Lord Mountbatten’s (Charles Dance) funeral and Princes Charles’ (Josh O’Connor) speech with real-life footage of protesters marching against the violence of the British army.
What Is Bloody Sunday? Explored With The Crown…
Bloody Sunday took place seven years before the event of Gold Stick on January 30th, 1972. The City of Derry in Northern Ireland was encountering a rise in violence and unrest in the year that resulted in the event of Bloody Sunday. Internment without trial ended up as steaming riots and increased presence of IRA in the City of Derry, and to stop the violence marches and parades were all banned in the city. One week before the event of Bloody Sunday happens a march was organized to protest against internment and while this paratroopers violently attacked unarmed citizens.
This attack turned into Bloody Sunday with 10,000-15,000 people who planned to march and held a rally to peacefully demonstrate against the violence that happened a week ago. Although British Army used barricades to restrict the path of protesters some protests regrouped and chose another path protesters spotted paratroopers occupying a building that overlooked the crowds and began throwing stones at them and this was the moment when the first bullet was shot in the event of Bloody Sunday.
As per the order of Colonel Wilford, the paratroopers took over the street and violently attacked the protesters. clubbing them with rifles, firing rubber bullets at close range, and threatening to kill them. More than 100 rounds were fired by soldiers at unarmed protesters and left 13 people dead with 26 people fighting for their last breath. All eyewitnesses maintained that protesters were unarmed and that soldiers were firing at people who were fleeing, or at people who were helping the injured. However, the official army position was that paratroopers were reacting to IRA bomb threats and nail guns. This mass shoot and brutality raised the tension in Northern Ireland and resulted in the assassination of Lord Mountbatten.
Because The Crown season 4 has to compress a decade of history, from 1979-1990, into ten episodes, “Gold Stick” is the only episode of The Crown that touches on The Troubles, and primarily focuses on Lord Mountbatten’s assassination by the IRA. The episode juxtaposes Prince Charles speaking at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral against footage of the civil unrest in Northern Ireland, and shows footage of protesters holding black coffins painted with the words “Bloody Sunday.”
