The Road to Peace - NORAID Online

1972 Bloody Sunday

Factors Leading Up To The
Bloody Sunday Massacre

Discrimination in the north

Discrimination in employment and housing has been used strategically on a large scale by unionists against the non-unionist population to ensure that the minority never thrives or rises in relative numbers. Forced immigration and chronic poverty were the primary tools of unionist oppression.

Sir Basil Brooke, Stormont Minister for Agriculture and later prime minister, made a policy statement in 1933: "I can speak freely on this subject as I have not a Roman Catholic about my own place. I appreciate the great difficulty experienced by some in procuring suitable Protestant labour but I would point out that Roman Catholics are endeavouring to get in everywhere. I appeal to loyalists, therefore, whenever possible, to employ good Protestant lads and lassies."

In 1948, E.C. Ferguson, MP for Enniskillen, stated: "The nationalist majority in County Fermanagh, notwithstanding the reduction of 336 in the year, stands at 3,604. I would ask the meeting to authorize their executive to take whatever steps, however drastic, to liquidate this nationalist majority." Figures taken from the Fermanagh County Council pay sheets in April 1969 show that in this county with a Roman Catholic majority, only 32 Catholics were employed in a force of 370 workers. In 1971, there were 74 school busmen employed by Fermanagh Education Committee -- only 3 were Catholics.

In 1934, Lord Craigavon expressed the unionist viewpoint: "We are a Protestant parliament and a Protestant state. I am an Orangeman first and a member of this parliament afterwards."

Between 1945 and 1970, 1,589 local authority houses were built, only 35% went to members of the Catholic majority. Ghetto housing schemes were built all over the occupied six counties. A unionist council member declared: "We are not going to build houses in the South Ward and cut a rod to beat ourselves later on. We are going to see that the right people are put into these houses, and we are not making any apologies for it."

The Civil Rights Movement

In 1967, a broadly based, non-political and non-sectarian civil rights movement composed of all shades of non-unionist opinion and of all religious denominations was formed in the six-counties. By peaceful protest demonstrations it demanded such reforms as one vote for each citizen [amazingly not the case in the north], equal opportunity housing and employment and the abolition of the abusive, police-state Special Powers Act. Most who supported the civil rights reforms were not interested in a free and united Ireland, but merely wanted justice within the British, partitionist system.

On October 1968, a peaceful civil rights march was brutally attacked by the RUC on the instructions of William Craig, Stormont Home Affairs Minister. A peaceful students march in January of 1969 from Belfast to Derry was attacked in an organized fashion by unionists and was later joined by the RUC in an vicious attack on the nationalist Bogside area of Derry.

Pro-British violence [both official and unofficial] culminated in a brutal attack on the Bogside on August 12 through the 14th, 1969, and an invasion of the nationalist areas of Belfast and other centers on August 13th - 15th. In the ensuing "pogrom", 500 houses were burned to the ground, 1,500 people forced from their homes, and nine people murdered. Realizing that Stormont rule had broken down, Westminster ordered British troops into action to save the system. A reform program was promised. The gerrymandered Derry Corporation was abolished and replaced by an undemocratic commission. Local government reform was promised but never implemented. The infamous Ulster Special Constabulary ["B Specials"] was disbanded but replaced by the Ulster Defense Regiment of the British army. Ex-members of the B Specials reorganized as gun clubs and were allowed to hold arms. By 1971, there were 102,000 licensed firearms in the six-counties, the vast majority in the hands of former members of the sectarian B-Specials. No change was made in t he Special Powers Act.

Internment

Following a change of government in Westminster, the British army launched a punitive military action against the people of the Lower Falls area of Belfast on 3rd, 4th and 5th of July, 1970. An illegal curfew was imposed and four innocent men were shoot dead by British troops. From July 4th onwards, all confidence in the British army as "peace keepers" evaporated. The troops were seen as the agents of the sectarian Stormont regime.

Between July 1970 and July 1972, the British army, on their own or supporting armed loyalist gangs, made brutal attacks on nationalist areas, shooting innocent nationalist civilians. Defense of the nationalist areas was then organized by the IRA, which also took retaliatory action against the British army. Sinn Fein organized the people and undertook a program of political action seeking nothing less than a united, independent republic. It was now obvious that the six-county statelet was totally unreformable. Only in a free nation could full civil rights be guaranteed.

When the British army brutally murdered two unarmed civilians in Derry in July, 1971, opposition members withdrew from the Stormont parliament. On August 7th, another civilian was murdered by the British army in Belfast. On August 9th, almost 300 men were arrested in dawn swoops and interned under the Special Powers Act. Not one unionist extremist was interned. Word soon got out of the internment camps that the men were being routinely mistreated and tortured. Sectarian attacks continued, supported by the British army.

The nationalist community reacted strongly. A widespread and effective campaign of civil disobedience began. A wave of anti-British feeling swept Ireland, North and South, as 8,000 refugees fled the pro-British terror and sought refuge in the South. The IRA took strong action and guerrilla warfare on a scale exceeding even that of 1919-21 developed. Irish people throughout the world organized and collected funds to make republican campaign the final phase in Ireland's 800 year-long struggle for freedom.

In 1970, Irish Northern Aid was founded in America to support the families of the internees and refugees burned out of their homes.

Bloody Sunday

On 30 January 1972, 30,000 people marched in Derry to protest internment. The march, the biggest ever organized by the Civil Rights Association, peacefully made its way towards Guildhall Square. British troops blocked blocked the route at William Street so the people assembled at "Free Derry Corner" in the Bogside area. Suddenly, armored cars appeared from behind barriers and headed for Rossville Street. British troops effectively boxed in hundreds of people on waste-ground between the Flats and William Street. Soldiers spilled out of the armored cars, their helmets identifying them a Paratroopers. None of the soldiers carried batons and shields as riot control troops do. All were fully armed with combat rifles. They used these rifle as clubs as the waded through the crowd.

Without warning, the clear and unmistaken sound of shots from British army issue SLRs rang out. More shots, and then people began to fall. The air rang to the sound of rapid gunfire and screams. Causally soldiers fired indiscriminately, often from the hip, into a fleeing and unarmed crowd. At the end of the day, 13 people lay dead and 17 wounded, one of whom died later. One man who was photographed being arrested and taken into a British army Saracen was later found shot dead.

Within hours, the British propaganda machine was in full operation claiming that they had shot dead thirteen "gunmen" and bombers, in an attempt to justify the planned, cold-blooded murder of peaceful, unarmed civil rights protesters.

The Irish Republican Army was now the last resort of the nationalist people. To protect them from the combined official and unofficial forces of the 6-County statelet, and then to go on the offensive to rid Ireland once and for all of British interference and tyranny, the IRA was forced to reorganize from near extinction. With nothing available but a few old and unreliable weapons, the ranks of the IRA were nonetheless swelled by a risen people who would no longer wait to be crushed by an undemocratic and despotic state.

The victims of the Bloody Sunday Massacre

Jack Duddy,
aged 17

Paddy Doherty,
aged 31

Bernard McGuigan,
aged 41

High Gilmore,
aged 17

Kevin McElhinney,
aged 17

Michael McDaid,
aged 20

William Nash,
aged 19

John Young,
aged 17

Michael Kelly,
aged 17

Jim Wray,
aged 22

Gerard Donaghy,
aged 17

Gerard McKinney,
aged 35

William McKinney,
aged 26

John Johnston,
aged 59
(Mr Johnston died in June as a result of his wounds)

Thirteen were also wounded by gunfire. Many other people were assaulted and beaten by the Paras.

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