1969-72: Internment, Bloody Sunday and Direct Rule
The violence of August 1969 led to an increase in loyalist and republican paramilitary groups. Attempting to curtail IRA violence NI Prime Minister Brian Faulkner introduced internment without trial. However, this led to a dramatic increase in violence. Relations between the Army and Catholic working class areas reached their lowest point with Bloody Sunday in January 1972 when 14 men were shot dead by members of the Parachute Regiment in Derry. This event encouraged the UK government to assume complete control of security in Northern Ireland and led to the introduction of Direct Rule from Westminster and the suspension of the Northern Ireland parliament.