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Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday Mural, Derry
(authors collection)
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was aware of the plans of the Civil Rights Movement to organise a non-violent anti-Internment march from Creggan to Derry on 30 January 1972. The Chief Superintendent, Frank Lagan, informed Andrew MacLellan, Commander of the 8 Infantry Brigade, of this plans and he explicitly asked to allow the march without military intervention. Although MacLellan agreed he was outranked by the Commander of Land Forces in Northern Ireland, General Ford. Probably with the consent of the Northern Ireland Committee of the British Cabinet General Ford assigned Derek Wilford, Commander of the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment, in charge of an arrest operation in the context of the Special Powers Act and the Internment.
I Wasn't Even Born
I remember people happy and the confidence of that morning
The Creggan shops
I remember the banner that was carried
The gathered message
I remember live fire
A pool of blood on the pavement
I remember Hugh Gilmore and Patrick Doherty
I remember running
The Flats
I remember Jim Wray and Michael McDaid
I remember screaming
English accents
I remember William Nash and Gerard McKinney
I remember a crazed army
a white hanky
I remember Michael Kelly and John Young
I remember it black and white but,
blood is always red
I remember Jacky Duddy and Bernard McGuigan
I remember looking for my friend in the confusion
and then through the quiet
I remember Gerald Donaghy and Kevin McElhinney
I remember hearing the news
I remember John Johnston and William McKinney
I remember thirteen coffins
Black flags
I remember a young woman with an old face
The funerals
I remember my father, crying hot angry tears
I remember the lies
and I wasn't even born.
S. Meenan and K. Mullan
Source: Bloody Sunday Trust.
The march started in Creggan and took an indirect route to Derry. The number of participants is unsure as estimations varies from 3,000 up to 20,000. Initially the march was due to end at Guildhall Square in the city centre. Barricades however forced the marchers towards Free Derry Corner. A small group separated itself from the main crowd and collided with an army barricade in William Street. There was some stone throwing and jeering, but according to observers nothing out of the ordinary.
At the same time, but some distance from both the riot in William Street as the meeting at Free Derry Corner, shots were fired from a building, leaving one juvenile and one older man injured. Armoured cars turned up behind the barricades and moved through the Bogside area to box the crowd at Free Derry Corner. Paratroopers got out of the vehicles in what seems to be an arrest operation. Instead of the standard crowd control equipment like shields and truncheons the soldiers dressed for battle. Using their riffles as clubs the soldiers tried to spread the crowd when suddenly gunfire was heard.
Soldiers from the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment with their riffles on the hip, meaning without aiming at a specific target, shot into the crowd from street level and snipers fired shots from an observation point on the City Walls which is now known as Murderers' Corners. When the smoke of battle had cleared 13 people were killed, among which seven young men under 19 years of age. One man died later on his wounds.
This massacre is still under investigation. The British Army still claims that shots has been fired and bombs were thrown towards their troops, but there are no other witnesses who saw firearms other then used by the British Army or bombs though. After interviewing 922 witnesses the final report of this Saville inquiry is expected in the summer of 2007, 35 years after the event took place.
Bloody Sunday, not to be confused with the other Bloody Sunday, is commemorated in several songs for example U2 and by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Direct Rule
The Wednesday after Bloody Sunday thousands attended the funerals of the death in Creggan and prayer services were held all over Ireland. In Dublin 90 percent of the workers stopped with their work in respect and 30,000 to 100,000 people gathered in Dublin and burned down the British Embassy. By that time it was clear for the British Prime Minister Edward Heath that the Northern Ireland government was unable to manage the situation and Westminster abolished the Stormont government. The clock has turned backwards for 56 years and Northern Ireland was governed from London again.