Bloody Sunday remembered

 

 

 

 

Sunday January 30, 1972. Fifty-one years ago.  An event known as Bloody Sunday or the Bogside Massacre occurred when occupying British soldiers shot 26 unarmed citizens, all Catholic, during a protest march. Thirteen died immediately, another died later for a total of 14.  Some were shot trying to get away, some shot trying to help the wounded. Many were also wounded by shrapnel, rubber bullets, or batons. British Army vehicles ran over another two and some protestors were beaten.

The march – intended to be peaceful – had been a protest against internment without trial. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association had organized the event.  The British soldiers were attached to the 1^st Battalion, Parachute Regiment and had been involved in the Ballymurphy massacre a few months before Bloody Sunday.

Two investigations were held – the first was The Widgery Tribunal which absolved both the British soldiers and British authorities of any blame. Although called a whitewash by many, the results stood.

In 1998, Lord Saville opened what's known as The Saville Inquiry. Although the report was not made public until 2010, the conclusions were that the murders were both unjustified and unjustifiable.

The event is one of the most well known during The Troubles and remains the largest mass shooting in Northern Ireland. It fueled anti-British sentiment and brought membership increases for both the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA)

Although I did not yet know the depth of my heritage, by my teens I had become an ardent supporter of Irish freedom, especially in the Six Counties. One of my great-great grandfathers slew an English lord and fled to America to avoid being hanged. On another branch of my family tree, a father and son were the sole survivors after the Great Hunger (The Famine of their large family. To the end of his life, the son would say, "Aye well if things get too dear, we can all eat grass" – because he had, to survive. My Granny said the same to the end of her life.

During my college years, I did a report and reading of Thomas Kinsella's poem, "Butcher's Dozen." If you're not familiar, look it up or listen to Donal O'Kelly's reading, done a year ago on the 50^th anniversary. He does it far better than I ever did.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bZfRb0aaso&ab_channel=MuseumofFreeDerry

 If you'd rather read it, you can do that here:  https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/bsunday/kinsella.htm

Be aware, it's raw and violent and harsh - and real.

As a reference what it was like in the United States in 1972, at the time of The Troubles and the escalation that was the result of Bloody Sunday, here's a brief look:

 

January 1972. I was ten years old and still lived in the same house where I'd lived all my life, an old brick home dating back to the late 1800's. My neighborhood was the center of my universe, with relatives within a few blocks. Although my beloved grandfather, my Pop, had died the year before, I still had a loving circle of family. I was in the fifth grade at Webster Elementary School, St. Joseph, Missouri, a huge brick building a few blocks east of the house.

This is how I looked in those days, knee socks and all.

 

 

January 30 was a Sunday but I have no major memories that pinpoint that exact day. There was most likely church followed by a Sunday dinner. In 1972 most Sundays Granny, now a widow, would come to eat with us. We had grown up with roast beef or fried chicken for Sunday dinner, maybe a good pork roast or ham but by then, my dad worked as a route salesman for Zidell Sales Company.  The money wasn’t as good as when he had worked for Swift And Company so our basic standard of living changed and so did what we ate.

Later my entire world would shift on its axis and on the very day school dismissed for the summer, we got word that my dad had been hired to work for the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) as a poultry inspector. Having spent his years at Swifts in the beef chiller, he had to be trained. Within days, he was sent to far Southwest Missouri for some hands on at a poultry plant, then on to Georgia to inspector school, then back to Missouri where we settled in a small town.

But my life on January 30, 1972 had not yet changed but around the world, in a cause that I would come to care very deeply about, everything changed.