BLOODY SUNDAY 25th ANNIVERSARY


Have You Forgotten Bloody Sunday?


This document is part of the Ireland History section of the
documentary collection, World History Archives, and is
associated with the world history resource page, Gateway to
World History.


The road to Bloody Sunday began 27 years ago, October 5,
1968, when 500 civil-rights demonstrators marching along
Duke Street in Derry were baton-charged and beaten off the
streets by the sectarian RUC. In 1968, the only answer the
Stormont regime could give to the raising of the banner of
civil rights by the nationalist people of the six counties
was naked repression.

By January 30, 1972, the only thing that had changed was the
length to which the Unionists and the British government
were prepared to go to intimidate nationalist protesters
from the streets. In the interim, CS gas, water cannon,
rubber bullets-even internment without trial and martial
law-had failed.

BLOODY SUNDAY

The march in Derry on January 30, 1972, was one of nine
marches organized that month by the Civil Rights Association
and Northern Resistance Movement to protest against
internment (introduced in August 1971). At the same time, a
blanket ban had been imposed on street demonstrations by the
Stormont regime, making all civil-rights marches illegal.
When a group of protesters marched along Magilligan beach on
January 22nd to the internment camp there, they were
savagely batoned by British occupation forces. It was a
foretaste of what was to come if the nationalist people
still chose to defy British rule.

This they planned to do on Sunday, January 30th, by marching
in their thousands from Bishops field in the Creggan Estate
to the Guildhall in Derry city center.

In the days after the attack on the Magilligan protesters,
the Derry CRA released a defiant statement saying: "Just as
the violence used by the RUC in the march on Duke Street
strengthened the determination of the people to use their
rights peacefully on the streets, so this latest act of
violence by the authorities strengthens the will of the
people of Derry to march in peaceful protest on Sunday
next."

IMPENDING DOOM

A crowd of around 10,000 left the Bishops field that day,
swelling to twice that figure by the time it had covered the
3-mile route to the Bogside. The day was sunny but cold.
There was no sense of impending doom. Indeed, as the
(English) Guardian's newspaper correspondent, Simon
Winchester, noted, "The mood seemed almost ebullient, with
mothers wheeling prams, children weaving here and there,
laughing, joking, playing pranks on the television men, and
generally adding to an air of a Derry carnival."

The first hint that this mood was to be cruelly shattered
came at William Street, where the advance of the crowd was
blocked by a British-army barricade.

As the crowd turned backwards to reconvene the proposed
rally at Free Derry Corner (where Bernadette Devlin
McAliskey and Fenner Brockway were to speak), CS gas, water
cannon and rubber bullets were unleashed by the occupation
forces from the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment.
Minutes later, at approximately 4:17 p.m., just as
Bernadette Devlin was about to speak, a hail of bullets came
whizzing along Rossville Street without warning, fired at
the large crowd standing at the barricade outside Rossville
Flats.

Without realizing what was happening, attendees dived to the
ground for cover, stunned and panic-stricken. Others ran to
the shelter of the stairwells of Rossville Flats. Those
caught in the open at the barricade along Rossville Street
were cut down by the deadly accuracy of British snipers.

KILLING GROUND

Within seconds, with Saracen armored cars sweeping into the
courtyard of the apartment buildings and British soldiers
(from the Royal Anglian Regiment) raking the Bogside with
bullets from positions atop of the Derry walls, the entire
area became a killing ground. For twenty minutes the firing
continued, with momentary lulls. Anyone who moved was
mercilessly picked off by British snipers. White
handkerchiefs were ignored, and fire was concentrated on
anyone attempting to go to the aid of the injured. To move
at all was to invite certain death.

Of the 13 who died during those 20 minutes (another victim,
John Johnston, was to die six months later from his wounds)
James Wray, Gerald McKinney, Gerard Donaghy and William
McKinney were murdered at Glenfada Park, where they ran to
escape the hail of bullets down Rossville Street. Their
escape route was cut off by other paratroopers firing down
from the corner of Frederick Street. Wray was wounded twice,
and lay, unable to move, in the open, as others tried to
reach him. His father said:

"One man saw him move and knew my lad was only injured. So
he made an attempt to get out to him, and as he approached,
the army opened fire on him. His body was lying there as a
trap and anybody who went to save him was going to be shot.
Minutes later, as Jim looked up, they shot him, from a
distance of nine feet, in his back as he lay in the street."

As others continued to flee, Gerald McKinney stood holding
his hands above his head when a soldier approached him and,
at pointblank range, shot him in the chest. Kevin McElhinney
was on his hands and knees.

Paddy Doherty had gone out to pick up one of the wounded,
when he himself became a target. The same with 17-year-old
Michael Kelly and 41-year-old Bernard McGuigan.

THE SLAUGHTER CONTINUES

Michael Kelly's father recalled in the Derry Journal of
February 1st, 1972, "My young fellow saw a man of about 50
years getting hit, and he ran to see what he could do for
him. As he ran towards him, he [Kelly] was shot in the
stomach. It was the first time at a march in his life."

Bernard McGuigan, holding up a white handkerchief to walk
out to save Paddy Doherty, was shot in the base of the
skull. When 19-year-old William Nash was shot at the
barricade along Rossville Street, his father Alex went to
his aid. Alex Nash was shot twice in the chest while bending
over his wounded son, shouting at the soldiers to stop.

Not far away, in the shelter of the barricade, 17-year-old
John Young was dragging himself, wounded, towards the door
of the Rossville Flats with onlookers screaming from the
windows, "Come on lad, come on, you're nearly there." John
Young never made it; he was another victim of Bloody Sunday.
Bloody Sunday shook nationalist Ireland to the core. When
the news of the mass murder broke, a tidal wave of anger and
revulsion swept all of Ireland. The British authorities
responded swiftly with a major international propaganda
offensive through the media and the Widgery Tribunal
whitewash.

No paratrooper was ever brought to trial for the murders,
however. In fact, their commander that day was decorated the
following year by the Engish queen. There were to be no
official apologies, no media outpourings of grief and
outrage, no national appeals for sympathy for the innocent
victims of Bloody Sunday. Only contempt. As Simon Winchester
wrote: "Thanks to the propaganda merchants, and half a dozen
lazy hacks, Bloody Sunday became a closed book."

PLANNED MASSACRE

Yet, despite the neat PR job the British establishment have
done covering up the facts about Bloody Sunday, they have
never been able to shake the conviction of the thousands of
survivors of that day that Bloody Sunday was a shoot-to-kill
operation, a massacre, planned and executed with cold
blooded intent.

As the father of one of the Bloody Sunday victims, Jim Wray,
put it: "The British planned at cabinet level to put our
people off the streets, to shoot them if necessary. They
were prepared to take that chance, they took that chance,
and they gave us Bloody Sunday."

And, as the solitary stone monument in the Bogside attests,
six of the Bloody Sunday victims were 17 years of age. The
British were shooting to kill Irish children.

Few could have known that the journey that began in Derry's
Duke Street on October 5, 1968, was to end with a
blood-soaked civil-rights banner lying in aBogside gutter on
January 30,1972.

Yet, 27 years on from Duke Street, the risen nationalist
people are still marching-through more shoot-to-kill
executions, judicial whitewashes and crown-force
cover-ups-and they are still carrying their banners.

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14 Facts about Bloody Sunday



1.On January 30, 1972, soldiers from the British Army's 1st
Parachute Regiment opened fire on civilian demonstrators in
the Bogside, Derry, Ireland, near the Rossville flats,
killing 13 and wounding a number of others. One wounded man
later died from illness attributed to that shooting.

2.The march, which was called to protest internment, was
"illegal" according to British government authorities.
Internment without trial was introduced by the British
government on August 9, 1971.

3.The march took place one week after the British Army beat
protesters off the strand near Magilligan during a civil
rights protest in which the now-SDLP leader John Hume was
involved.

4.Marchers assembled in Creggan, proceeded down Creggan
Street and then William Street and had intended to march to
the Guildhall in the center of the city, but that was
changed to avoid confrontation with the British Army, which
had barricaded the top of William Street at Waterloo Street.

5.The march began around 3 p.m. and was attended by about
5,000 people at the beginning. It grew in size to about
10,000 by the time it reached the Bogside Inn and the Free
Derry Corner.

6.The Bloody Sunday march was heavily attended by young
people.

7.One of those who spoke at the rally at the Free Derry
Corner (where the marchers assembled rather than the
Guildhall) was Bernadette Devlin, 23-year-old MP for
Mid-Ulster.

8.The first shots were fired by the British Army about 3:55
p.m.

9.The British-government-appointed Widgery Tribunal found
soldiers were not guilty of shooting dead the 13 civilians
in cold blood.

10.The British Army officer commanding the troops,
Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford, was in 1973 named to the
Queen's "Honours List," and given a knighthood.

11.Britain's Prince Charles is "ceremonial" commanding
officer of 1 Para

12.The British government and the British Army never
apologized for these murders.

13.Those who were murdered:

Jack Duddy, 17, hit by single bullet as he ran across
courtyard of Rossville Flats

Michael Kelly, 17, shot in stomach as he stood on pile of
rubble near entrance to Glenfada Park, off Rossville Street.

James Wray, 22, shot and wounded as he ran through alleyway
from Glenfada Park to Abbey Park, then shot again and
killed.

Gerald McKinney, 35, shot and killed by bullet to chest has
he ran with hands raised toward soldiers in Glenfada Park.

Gerald Donaghey, 17, shot in abdomen, as he ran up to flat
in Abbey Park. Died on way to hospital.

William McKinney, 26, shot and killed as he bent over Gerald
McKinney in Glenfada Park.

John Young, 17, hit by bullet in head and killed as he stood
beside rubble barricade across Rossville Street.

Michael McDaid, 20, shot dead standing by same barricade.

William Nash, 19, shot in chest and killed. At same
barricade.

Patrick Doherty, 31, shot in buttock while crawling toward
Rossville Flats. Bullet traveled up spine and exited chest,
instantly killing him.

Bernard McGuigan, 41, killed instantly when hit in back of
head as he crawled toward body of Pat Doherty near Rossville
Flats.

Hugh Glimour, 17, killed by bullets that passed through his
elbow and across his body as he ran up Rossville Street.

Kevin McElhinney, 17, killed as he crawled to a doorway inRossville Flats. Bullet enter his buttock and traveled
through his body.

John Johnson died later from illness associated with injury
suffered on that day.

Patrick O'Donnell, Patrick McDaid, Alex Nash, Patrick
Campbell, Peggy Deery, Daniel McGowan, Michael Bridge,
Michael Quinn, Joseph Mahon, Joseph Friel and Michael
Bradley were all wounded by gunfire that day. Alana Burke
was injured when a British Army armored personnel carrier
crushed her against a wall.

14.None of the dead or wounded were armed. No shots were
fired at the British Army.

Information compiled from "Bloody Sunday in Derry, What
really happened," by Eamonn McCann, 1992, Brandon Books,
Dingle, Co. Kerry, Ireland.

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