On Bloody Sunday (Derry Northern Ireland - January 1972) PDF
Preview On Bloody Sunday (Derry Northern Ireland - January 1972)
In January 1972, a peaceful civil rights march in Northern Ireland ended in bloodshed.
Troops from Britain's 1st Battalion of the 'elite' Parachute Regiment opened fire on a group of unarmed and defenceless marchers, leaving in their wake 13 dead and 15 wounded.
Seven of those killed were teenage boys.
The day became universally known as 'Bloody Sunday'.
The events occurred in broad daylight and in the full glare and horrified view of the worlds press, who were covering the legally organised peaceful march for their respective newsagencies.
Within a few hours, the British military commander in Northern Ireland was informing the world that they had won an 'IRA gun battle', with civilian casualties resulting from that gun battle and not the Parachute Regiment.
Despite witness statements and photographs clearly showing the falsehood of this official explanation, this was to become the accepted official narrative for decades until a family-led campaign instigated one of the most complex and exhaustive legal inquiries in this countries history.
In 2010, the victims of Bloody Sunday were fully exonerated when Lord Saville found that the majority of the victims were either shot in the back as they ran away from members of the Parachute Regiments 'undisciplined gunfire' or were cut down running to help someone in need, either dead or wounded, already on the ground.
All were found to be unarmed with no gunfire of any kind undertaken by anyone apart from those members of the Parachute Regiment present on that day.
The enquiry also found that there were No IRA Gunmen firing at soldiers or in the crowd firing at the soldiers as so long claimed by the British Army.
The final report and its damming findings against the British Army and the Parachute Regiment, made headlines all over the world.
While many of those present on this day buried the trauma of that horrifying few hours for a lifetime, historian and Irish justice campaigner Juliann Campbell - whose teenage uncle was the first to be killed that day - felt the need to keep recording the interviews of those willing to share their experiences, and over the years collected rare and unpublished accounts of how family and friends were left to deal with the fallout from the march - isolated and alone.
Due to her own personal connection to the marchers she was also aware of just how precious such memories were to those who were left behind to survive in its wake.
Fifty years on, in this book, survivors, relatives, eyewitnesses and politicians, shine a light on the events of Bloody Sunday, together, for the first time.
As they tell their stories, the tension, confusion and anger build with an awful power.
ON BLOODY SUNDAY unfolds before us an extraordinary human drama, as we experience one of the darkest moments in modern Irish and British history - and witness the true human cost of conflict.
"A momentous chronicle, timely and vital, which highlights that the burden of change rests, as always, upon the shoulders of those who suffered and yet, have nurtured the desire that lessons be learned''.
- Michael Mansfield QC, who represented a number of families during the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.
"It's a wonderful book.
The technique used - multiple voices speaking directly to us - is very simple but it has a profound effect.
It puts us into the middle of the chaos of Bloody Sunday and keeps us there throughout the grief and anger that follow.
A wonderful, wonderful book''.
- Jimmy McGovern, BAFTA award winning screenwriter and director.
"This was a day like no other in my lifetime...
a day that affected the lives of countless thousands on this Island.
A day that many of us will never forget.... ''.
- Christy Moore, Irish songwriter.
Released in print and digitally to mark the 50th Anniversary of the loss of those killed, on 26 January 2022.
Julieann Campbell
An award-winning author, Julieann Campbell's seventeen-year-old uncle, Jackie Duddy, was the first person to be killed on 30 January 1972.
For more than a decade, Julieann has worked to document and archive the collective experiences of that day.
As a former Chair of the Bloody Sunday Trust, she took on the role of family press officer ahead of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry when it was held in 2010.
She is a PhD Researcher at Ulster University's School of Law exploring the impact of post-conflict storytelling and is a director of the Pat Finucane Centre for Human Rights.
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