Reality Magazine January/February 2022

Page 32

F E AT U R E

SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY THIS MONTH MARKS THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF BLOODY SUNDAY, ONE OF THE DARKEST DAYS IN THE HISTORY OF THE TROUBLES. RICHARD MOORE RECALLS THAT TERRIBLE ATROCITY AND THE EVENT FOUR MONTHS LATER THAT WOULD CHANGE HIS LIFE FOREVER BY JOHN SCALLY

32 Richard pictured with the Dalai Lama

M

emory plays tricks with the brain, but it seemed that every morning of my childhood in the 1970s, the first story on the RTE news always began: "A parttime member of the UDR has been murdered by the IRA." Of course, these attacks triggered reprisal killings along sectarian lines. One of the worst atrocities occurred on January 30, 1972 when British paratroopers shot 13 people dead on the streets of Derry. The day became known as Bloody Sunday. Television images captured the crowd's shock, disbelief and distress when the shooting started and their terrible sense of helplessness as the number of casualties increased. The Troubles have produced many unforgettable moments, such as the late Gordon Wilson's

words of forgiveness after the death of his daughter Marie in the Remembrance Sunday massacre in Enniskillen in 1987. In the highly charged atmosphere that followed the atrocity, his words diffused a volatile situation. Another defining image will always be that of Fr Edward Daly on Bloody Sunday, waving a white, bloodstained handkerchief, as he led a group of men carrying a teenager's limp body amidst a hail of bullets. FATEFUL DAY This month marks the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. For some, it is a wound that will never heal. On that fateful day, British paratroopers shot at antiinternment marchers on the streets of Derry, killing 13 and

REALITY JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022

Richard Moore

wounding many more. Those killed were: Gerard Donaghy (17); James Wray (22); Gerard McKinney (35); William McKinney (26); John Young (17); William Nash (19); Michael McDaid (20); Michael Kelly (17); Kevin McElhinney (17); Patrick Doherty (31); Jack Duddy (17); Hugh Gilmore (17) and Bernard McGuigan (41). Shortly afterwards, John Johnston died of a brain tumour. His family is convinced that the trauma of Bloody Sunday contributed significantly to his untimely death. That evening the sound of silence was heard all over Derry. A heavy stillness filled the air, but it couldn’t obliterate the pungent scent of fear. Where would the reprisals be? When would they happen? The grieving families felt an anguish almost impossible to describe.

Bloody Sunday marked a milestone in the history of the North. It was one of the watershed moments in Anglo-Irish history. Nationalist Ireland's anger was reflected in the torching of the British embassy in Dublin. The events of that Sunday seemed to touch a deep nerve with everybody, bringing to the surface a wellspring of latent anti-English feeling, with all sorts of grievances, real and imagined, about English involvement in Irish history. The burning of the British embassy starkly illustrated the ambivalent attitude of many Irish people to political violence. Bishop Edward Daly subsequently said, "What really made Bloody Sunday so obscene was the fact that people afterwards at the highest level of British justice justified it."


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