Bloody Sunday

Bloody Sunday occurred on 30 January 1972 in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland, when an illegal march of up to 20,000 civil-rights demonstrators protesting against the British policy of internment was fired on by the British army. A section of the crowd had been stoning soldiers, and the army maintained that shots had been fired at them from the republican Bogside area of the city and that petrol bombers were among the crowd of demonstrators. The consequences of the army's actions were thirteen dead and an injury that would later prove to be fatal. Republicans claimed that their personnel had stood down on that day because they believed that the army wanted to draw them into a full-scale battle. It was not until 1992 that John Major, then prime minister of Great Britain, acknowledged in a letter to the local MP, John Hume, that the victims should be regarded as innocent of any allegation that they had been shot while handling firearms or explosives. It was a tacit acceptance that the original public inquiry under Chief Justice Lord Widgery was flawed in that it was rushed and did not consider all the available evidence. New evidence, including new eyewitness accounts, medical evidence, and new interpretations of ballistics material, as well as a detailed Irish government assessment of the new material and of Lord Widgery's findings in light of all the material available, prompted another inquiry. In a parliamentary statement on 29 January 1998, Prime Minister Tony Blair announced another tribunal to investigate the events of Bloody Sunday, to be chaired by Lord Saville. The novelty of this inquiry was that the government was at least prepared to look at the uncongenial possibility that the killings were unlawful.

There is clear evidence that relations between the local Catholic community and the security forces deteriorated throughout 1971. One particular incident had been the army's killing of two local youths in a Bogside riot in July: an unofficial inquiry chaired by Lord Gifford found that both youths were unarmed. By November the semiweekly local nationalist newspaper, the Derry Journal, recorded incidents such as applause in court after riot charges had been dismissed; strikes and traffic disruption following a wave of protests by teachers, dockers, and factory workers after army raids in the area; the condemnation of army tactics by tenants' associations after soldiers had killed a mother of six children and 4,000 people had attended her funeral; a meeting of 500 business and professional people to support a campaign of passive resistance; and the army detention of John Hume after he had refused to be searched. The army's own records show that following the two July killings, the Catholic community had "instantly turned from benevolent support to community alienation." The situation was compounded in August with the introduction of internment, so that "all combined to lead to a situation in which the security forces were faced by an entirely hostile Catholic community." By the end of the year the chief of the general staff was warning that whereas the Irish Republican Army (IRA) "were under pressure and becoming disorganised, in Londonderry the situation was different. The IRA could still count on the active support of the Roman Catholic population, and a major military operation here could have widespread political consequences." By early January 1972 the general officer commander admitted, "I am coming to the conclusion that the minimum force necessary to achieve a restoration of law and order is to shoot selected ringleaders among the DYH [Derry Young Hooligans], after clear warnings have been issued." On the weekend before Bloody Sunday a protest was held outside an internment camp. It led to a clash between paratroopers and protestors—a clash described by one commentator as "the brutal act of an arrogant military." It served as a mild rehearsal for Bloody Sunday.

The impact of Bloody Sunday was immense. It led to a huge resurgence in violence: In the three years before Bloody Sunday, about 250 people had been killed in the violence, whereas 470 died in the ensuing eleven months. It acted as an enormous recruiting device for the IRA. It pitted official Ireland against the British government. The Irish government recalled its ambassador in London, and the British embassy in Dublin was burned to the ground. The attendance of the Catholic primate of all Ireland, a bishop, 200 priests, five Irish government ministers, and nine mayors from the Republic at the victims' funerals made clear the sense of outrage throughout nationalist Ireland. The international pressure on the British government was such that within two months the Stormont regime was suspended and direct rule from London imposed. The unseemly haste of the Widgery report—published within eleven weeks of the day—did not prevent the coroner at the inquests from describing the deaths as "sheer, unadulterated murder" in August 1973.

The coroner's remarks encapsulated a raging sense of injustice among the nationalist community, as demonstrated by the unremitting campaign conducted by the victims' relatives and by John Hume to have the case reopened. It was "compelling new evidence" that led Tony Blair to announce a new inquiry on the twenty-sixth anniversary. It met for the first time in Derry in April 1998 and was chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate with the assistance of two other Commonwealth judges. The first phase of the tribunal ended in September 2002 after more than 500 civilian witnesses and experts had been cross-examined in Derry. The second phase moved to London for the examination of 250 soldiers and some senior British politicians before it moved back to Derry, where it completed its public fact-finding on 13 February 2004. The Saville Report was scheduled to be published in 2005. Time will tell whether the Saville tribunal will be an instrument of justice.

Bloody Sunday

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