Sunday Bloody Sunday was one of the worst attrocities committed by any western government against Civil Rights activists on either side of the Atlantic.
Bloody Sunday was an attrocity in terms of numbers killed, and the age of the victims. It was a painful and festering insult, prolonged so that the British could have the absurdity of the victims' culpability be considered as plausible--though it was ridiculous--while truth went unheard: the victims were just unarmed kids. It is the victory of those demands that protect us all from worse Bloody Sundays. As the Irish held the murderers to account, now all governments must fear similar consequences.
Now that tribunal has declared the lies lies and the crimes crimes, the victims may be buried at last as unarmed pubescent civilians, and not as the raving Irish gunmen the British insisted with such baldness for so long.
The suppression of truth is more violent than most expressions of hate.
Many of the murdered were in their late teens, young, their hearts blasted out of their chests at point-blank range by foreign paratroopers displaying sovereignty over this part of Ireland.
Here memory helps us put a benchmark on state evil against their citizens who demand change for more rights. If Bloody Sunday is not remembered in detail, then worse Bloody Sundays become permittable. That is not the case because the people of Derry concentrated their cause for four decades, until Truth Overcame perfidity.
Gerard V.Donaghy, Gearóid Ó Donnchadha
shot in the stomach while running to safety, fake evidence then planted on his corpse
17 years
John F.Duddy
Shot in the chest while running away from paratroopers, one of whom, three witnesses say, took deliberate aim at the youth as he ran. He is the uncle of champion Irish boxer, John Duddy, "The Derry Destroyer."
17 years
Hugh P.Gilmore
Also running from paratroopers on Rossville Street, he was shot in the chest by a bullet that shattered, firstly, his right elbow.
17 years
Michael G.Kelly
Shot in the stomach while standing near the rubble barricade of the Rossville Flats.
17 years
Kevin G.McElhinney
Shot from behind while attempting to crawl to safety at the front entrance of the Rossville Flats.
17 years
John P.Young
Shot in the head while standing at the rubble barricade.
17 years
William N. Nash
shot in the chest at close range, his father wounded trying to reach him
19 years
Michael M.McDaid
Shot in the face at the barricade as he was walking away from the paratroopers. The trajectory of the bullet indicated he could have been killed by soldiers positioned on the Derry Walls.
20 years
James J.Wray
shot twice, the second round fired into his back while he was lying on the ground outside his grandparents’ house
22 years
William A.McKinney
shot in the back while tending the wounded
27 years
Patrick J.Doherty
Shot from behind while attempting to crawl to safety in the forecourt of Rossville flats. Doherty was the subject of a series of photographs, taken before and after he died by French journalist Gilles Peress. Despite testimony from "Soldier F" that he had fired at a man holding and firing a pistol, Widgery acknowledged that the photographs showed Doherty was unarmed, and that forensic tests on his hands for gunshot residue proved negative. The entire delay perpetuated by the British government was based on fake story after fake story that the victims were gunmen/boys.
31 years
James G.McKinney
Shot just after Gerald Donaghy. Witnesses stated that McKinney had been running behind Donaghy, and he stopped and held up his arms, shouting "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!", when he saw Donaghy fall. He was then shot in the chest.
34 years
Bernard McGuigan
Shot in the back of the head when he went to help Patrick Doherty. He had been waving a white handkerchief at the soldiers to indicate his peaceful intentions.
41 years
and John Johnston
died later as a result of injuries received that day
59 years
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