Sunday Bloody Sunday

They came from far and wide. Many walking, many sharing cars, others just finding a way forward. Mothers, sons, daughters, fathers, grandparents all. The outrage, the witnessed horror, the wounding and excruciating pain to the national soul on display. They marched to a place to mourn for their nation, to mourn for the fallen, they marched to Marrion Square Dublin. They were not alone, the outrage and anger everywhere: Cork, Galway, Sligo, Dundalk, Letterkenny, and over forty cities and towns large and small. The Irish soul was wounded that day, the love of a nation, the love of the fallen would be heard through an outpouring of love, anger, and patriotism.

Earlier, about six months earlier, a group of British soldiers — a policy extension of the six-county sectarian government, called Parachute Regiment — 1, (Para -1) murdered Irish men and women in Ballymurphy: a small Irish Catholic hamlet in Belfast. During the melee, a Priest witnessed someone dying in a field from the bullet of a British soldier. The Priest, Father Mullan, ran out, he ran waving the white handkerchief of peace, to help, to possibly give last rights. Leaning over the victim, Para — 1 sent a bullet his way. The British Army called the Priest a terrorist. The British Army went on to kill a mother, a son, and a father: they were all terrorists. The fake news, propagated out of Lisburn Army HQ went around the world. The telex machines were on fire. No media were in Ballymurphy that day to capture the moment, so the fake news prevailed.

You see, in Derry, in the six counties, six months later, it was a march for civil rights, a march for freedom, a march for one man one vote, a march for one family one house, a march for dignity and the right to have a job, a march against discrimination, a march for inalienable rights bestowed by on the individual by God. The six-county government, the sectarian government, would not have it. They needed to keep the Irish down on the farm. They needed to ensure superiority, they needed to protect the Orange Order.

This time, with the eyes of the world upon them, with the world’s media in tow, they — Para — 1 let loose on the human rights marchers of Derry shooting 13 people dead. A Priest, Father Edward Daly, seeing a prostrated body in the street ran out, to retrieve the boy with others. They carried the fallen wee lad, with Father Daly leading them waving a bloody white handkerchief of peace. He was not shot that day by Para — 1 and his image, that image of courage lives on in the world today. Although the cameras churned in the violence against the innocent people, the British called them terrorists and said they were armed. The fake news this day, predictable, propagated out of the British military complex in Lisburn, contradicted what the world saw on their televisions. Irish men and women knew differently, human rights groups knew differently, the citizens of the world knew differently, the British Government knew differently.

In Dublin, after the shootings, thousands gather: 20,000 according to reports.

They converge on Merrion Square, the business in Dublin city is at a standstill. The streets are packed despite the lashing rain and bitter cold. Dozens of marchers carry black flags, high fly their tricolours- the green, white and Protestant orange of Ireland; others, placards, and banners with slogans attacking the British, Prime Minister Heath, and the British Army.

The procession moves forward and is led by four men carrying black furled flags. A band plays the ‘Dead March.’ Stopping outside the British Embassy, the crowd heaves in its bereavement. Coffins are brought one by one, 13 in all, to the steps of the British Embassy. After a few emotional minutes, the sorrow becomes anger and outrage and the feelings of the nation send petrol bombs smashing and exploding on the British Embassy exploding fire all around. Inside, protestors, who breached the perimeter lit the Embassy on fire in a show of defiance and retribution. The Embassy burns through the night.

Said Brigadier Kitson a few days later to his Officer Commanding in Derry, Colonel Derek Wilford. “What I don’t understand is why, having got that far in, you didn’t go in and sort the whole mess out.”

Sunday Bloody Sunday- 50 years ago today.