Northern Ireland: Past and present
01 March 1997
Bloody Sunday
"I was a 15-year-old schoolboy when I witnessed Bloody Sunday... I was at the corner of Glenfada Park and the rubble barricade on Rossville Street when the 1st Battalion Paratroop Regiment advanced. I have very clear memories of the Paras fanning out across the waste ground to the north of the Rossville flats complex. I can still vividly recall one Para, about 20 metres away, firing a rubber bullet which bounced off the barricade. Another took up a firing position at the corner of the first block of flats diagonally across the road. Behind him I could see three paratroopers viciously raining the butts of their rifles down upon a young man they had caught. Then the unmistakable cracks of high-velocity SLR shooting started.
I distinctly remember a youth clutching his stomach a short distance away, his cry filling the air with despair and disbelief. For a moment we were stunned. People ran to his aid while others, including myself, sheltered behind the barricade.
Suddenly the air was filled with what seemed like a thunderstorm of bullets. The barricade began to spit dust and it seemed to come from every direction... Absolute panic ensued as we turned and ran... I escaped through Glenfada Park but there are several minutes of that afternoon of which I have absolutely no memory. Five young men died at the barricade and four between Glenfada Park and Abbey Park. As many again were wounded in those locations. What I saw is somewhere hidden in my subconscious... A primeval instinct had taken possession of me and I was, unashamedly, running home to safety."
So writes Don Mullan, the compiler of a new book containing a selection of the 500 eyewitness statements collected by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and NCCL (now Liberty), after the British Army murdered thirteen people on 30 January 1972. All of the statements were available to the Widgery Tribunal (see Statewatch, vol 5 no 6 pp18-19) but Widgery looked at 15 and in effect dismissed them all.
These events and the way they were covered up by the British authorities remain highly significant for the people of Derry. This was shown by the huge turn-out, estimated between 35,000 and 40,000, at a demonstration to mark the 25th anniversary of Bloody Sunday on 2 February, the largest demonstration ever held in the city.
Mullan's book is already a best seller in Ireland and deserves to be read widely elsewhere. In addition to the eyewitness statements and Mullan's introduction, Jane Winter provides a succinct account of what remains at issue: "New material is still emerging and awaits analysis, but it is already well beyond dispute that those who died were unarmed and that those who killed them have never been brought to justice. Even more serious is the fact that those who planned the operation that led to their deaths have never been held accountable, and no admission of responsibility has been made or apology offered by the British government."
The Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign has called for a new inquiry and a formal apology from the British government. The idea of an apology has even attracted qualified support in unionist circles, but Secretary of State Sir Patrick Mayhew rejected it outright in a manner guaranteed to cause maximum offence to the relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday. When he met with representatives of the Campaign in mid-February, Mayhew promised to give thoughtful consideration to the evidence presented in the Mullan book. Yet within 24 hours of the meeting, he publicly dismissed the relatives campaign in a BBC interview by saying that an apology was appropriate in cases of "criminal wrong-doing and there is nothing in the Widgery Report to support that". Furthermore, an apology would be "unjust" to those who had taken part in the day's "tragic events".
All royalties from Mullan's book go the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign.
Don Mullan (ed.) Eyewitness Bloody Sunday: The Truth, Dublin: