Bloody Sunday

Fifty years ago

Today is the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday when British Paratroopers went on a rampage shooting 26 unarmed civilians, killing 13 of them in Bogside, Derry, Northern Ireland.

Six of them were just 17 years old.

Many were shot at close range, some in the back and a number as they were trying to help those already shot.

They were effectively chased down and cornered by the soldiers.

There have been two major tribunals which investigated the incident during the sectarian strife which roiled Northern Ireland known as the “Troubles.”

The first was a complete whitewash while the second, held some twenty-five years later and lasting for 12 years, concluded what was widely known: it was murder, plain and simple.

Just a few months earlier these same paratroopers had killed 11 civilians in Belfast.

What sparked the violence?

The decision by the British government to imprison without trial suspects in a program known as internment. During the internment campaign, 1,981 people were rounded up and held.

Virtually all detainees were Irish Catholics with only a handful being “loyalists” supporting British control.

Some detainees were hooded, placed in a helicopter and told they were being thrown out; they were as it hovered several feet off the ground.

Others were subjected to sleep deprivation, loud noise, forced into “stress positions” and deprived of food and liquids as part of enhanced interrogation.

No British soldier or officer was ever held accountable for the Bloody Sunday killings.

Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford was found to have deliberately disobeyed orders in sending troops into Bogside but in 1972 Queen Elizabeth awarded him the Order of the British Empire (OBE), British justice, for sure.