The Stormont cabinet's concern at the intensification of civil rights marches in the run-up to Bloody Sunday is reflected in cabinet files released in Belfast.
At a meeting in Stormont Castle just five days before the Derry march on January 25th, 1972, the prime minister, Mr Brian Faulkner, said he was satisfied at the handling of what he termed "various republican demonstrations" the previous weekend.
He stressed both the small response of the public and the "timely and effective intervention of the security forces". None of the events had given any other organisation any grounds whatever for seeking to defy the ban on parades, he remarked.
The cabinet met again on the day after Bloody Sunday and reviewed the events in Derry in which 13 civilians had been killed.
The minutes show that the unionist cabinet regarded the civil rights demonstration on Bloody Sunday as "a republican march" and underline the determination of Mr Faulkner that the fatalities that day should not lead to any change in the attitude of the British army towards illegal marches.
According to the minutes, the Stormont cabinet "reviewed the events in Derry on the previous day in which 13 civilians had been killed in riots following an attempted republican march in defiance of the government ban".
Mr Faulkner informed his colleagues that British home secretary, Mr Reginald Maudling, would be announcing the British government's intention to hold a public inquiry into events.
Ministers agreed the terms of a statement to be issued by Stormont agreeing with the decision of the British government, stressing the dangers of defiance of the ban on marching and urging the need for "responsible representatives of the minority to come forward for talks to find a way out of the present situation".
Mr Faulkner confirmed that Gen Sir Harry Tuzo, the General Officer in Command in Northern Ireland, was fully aware of the implications of a threatened so-called "civil rights" march in Newry the following weekend.
Gen Tuzo had assured him there would be no change in the army's attitude to handling any such attempted breach of the law.