The UK government is to pay compensation to the families of those killed on Bloody Sunday, 1972 in Derry City, Northern Ireland. That day, the Parachute Regiment opened fire on a civil rights march and killed 13 people. I don’t know how well known this is outside the UK and Ireland. For US context think the Kent State Massacre but worse, as apart from those who died on the day, the event triggered the bloodiest year of the Troubles. Because so much time has gone by many of those injured on that day have already passed on.
How does one put a price on a life? Thirteen lives. The soldiers who fired on civilians as they were leaving the scene… shooting men, boys, in the back, snipers strategically placed so they could shoot them in their faces, these men need to be tried, for their crimes and held responsible for their actions.
It is a subject which, like Kent State, arouses passions. My roots lie on the green island, and so I am passionate about the Troubles and all of the blood that has been shed in the fight for independence from Britain. Free Ireland!
Well I suppose the name of the event would be common enough knowledge because of that song. However, other than the title and the the line “Bodies strewn across the dead end street” there’s nothing in it that directly alludes to the event.
There is a huge Irish population here in the US, and if the folks here keep in touch with family back there, they will certainly know of it. And… it was pretty big news here at the time. The Troubles were running neck and neck in the news with Middle East unrest for a long time. The IRA was raising millions over here.
Quite right that compensation should be paid but unfortunately it’ll never be enough and it’ll never undo the deed. But in the more civilised times we have now it is right and proper that this happens.
With that in mind, does anyone think this might trigger similar actions from the Republican and Unionist terror organisations?..no, I don’t think so either.
You say “Free Ireland” but what a strange thing to say from so far away. The fight is over…It is a free Ireland. All people there are free to come to a consensus on their future. The political process is set up to allow it to happen.
There is no tyrannical English government these days. I don’t doubt for a second that if you asked the UK man in the street they would rather be shot of NI. and are happy to leave the decision of re-unification to an agreed democratic process.
It’ll happen when the majority express a wish for it, and quite right too.
Of course we could have got here sooner but the Republican movement set back their own cause by the actions they took and the Unionists both fanned the flames and set their own fires. Murdering scum the lot of them. Peace would have prevailed far sooner had peaceful paths been taken, but don’t expect certain parties to admit it any time soon.
Unfortunately it is a common mistake. Marches had been banned around that time but this one was allowed with certain restrictions. No evidence of rioting was presented as justification so I don’t think that stacks up. Nor does the claim of the army responding to being fired upon. Subsequent evidence to the enquiries suggest there were armed IRA men present (it would be naive in the extreme to think otherwise) but that return fire was limited and only after the army shot first.
The army lost it, pure and simple. Unsurprising given the tensions of the time but tragic nonetheless. Nothing is served now by claiming this wasn’t a tragic mistake.
I grew up believing myself that the British army wouldn’t have done such a thing. But as I’ve read the evidence and discovered more about human behaviour in stressful situations I can see exactly how it may have happened.
Put hot-headed, gun-toting young men in a crowd situation in an environment of sniper shootings, nail bombs and suspicion and something like this is a certainty.
The only way out is to change that environment. Thankfully that is exactly what is happening.
^
Even the Saville enquiry did not deny that the troops who fired geniuninely believed themselves to be under threat. As it was they fired what, 270 rounds. That is not really much if you look at the firepower available to them. It was not an Amristar certainly.
FWIW I am not British or Irish and I have no bone in this fight.
It was a stupid, bloody mistake. It’s second only to Internment in terms of the biggest mistakes that the British authorities made in the Troubles. To this day, it serves to legitimise republican gangsterism and terrorism.
Exactly, you don’t do what your enemy wants you to do. The IRA knew full well at the time how internment was going to work in their favour. Same with Bloody Sunday. I suspect they didn’t give a shit about the innocents being killed but were head over heels at the political fallout from it.
On the other side of the coin, those implacably against any thought of Irish re-unification would do anything to keep the conflict going. Knowing that a continuation of violence means the UK government would find it impossible to give way to the Republicans. So the republicans (surely realising this) respond in kind and find themselves even further away from their intended goal.
Madness from start to finish.
Not fair to compare now and then. We live in different times. But yes, at that point it was a ridiculous choice for what was ostensibly crowd-control.
The biggest mistake the British government made was not paying attention to N Ireland, in the fifty years since partition. I think it was one republican who pointed out that the British Government was willing to turn a blind eye to the sort of discrimination that they would never have allowed on the mainland.
It was well known to me (and my circle) in Pakistan growing up. And it is well known to the folks I hang out with now in the US. More so in Boston where I live now, than in Atlanta or Kansas City where I previously lived, but most people who are aware of significant global historical events are aware of this. That last qualifier I think knocks out most Americans, but maybe I’m just an elitist furriner. I wonder how many Brits know what “88 Seconds in Greensboro” is about.