Hello again, and welcome to Masterpiece Theatre! Wait, wrong line. We’ll return to Iran and the US shortly, but for the moment I’d like to take a look at something else.

You may remember from my last column that there was an event in Iran dubbed Black Friday. That got me thinking about how many Black Fridays there are, which led me to wonder about how many Bloody Sundays there are. Turns out, a lot. Four in Ireland alone. So I think on Sundays, we’ll have a running theme.

Let’s start with the one Bono was singing about, shall we?

As with most events, there’s a lot of history underpinning it. Things tend not to explode unless they’ve been simmering for some time. As well, colonialism and religion are heavily in play. The issues in Ireland go back to the early 1600s, and are still alive even today–when I was in Belfast in 2018, I came across some pro-IRA graffiti, which surprised me. The people have not forgotten.

I’m going to skim through the earlier events, though with some you can expect that I’ll return to them in the future. Put on your orange or your green, and let’s go!

(Full disclosure: I’m of Irish Catholic descent via County Cork, and my mom actually dated a member of the Sinn Féin in the late 1980s. We speculated he might have been IRA as well, given that he was from Derry and passionate about Irish freedom, but we never asked. Additionally, I saw Ian Paisley speak in 1993; my boyfriend at the time spent much of Mr. Paisley’s speech alternating between hissing and booing quietly–he was a hardcore separatist. I have also been to Shankhill, and have seen some of the scars on the buildings. So yeah, I have some bias here.)

1609: Irish land in Ulster is given to Scottish and English settlers. These settlers are Protestant and Anglican (a subset of Protestantism that began with King Henry VIII and the Church of England). The native Irish are Catholic. The key difference in their faiths is a belief in papal supremacy; Protestants don’t believe that the Pope is a divine representative of God who has the right to exercise power over the entire church worldwide. This disagreement goes back to the Reformation. The clash between these two groups leads to two wars, lasting 12 years and three years, both of which ended with Protestant victories.

1795: The Orange Order is founded. It’s a Protestant group formed with the intent of protecting their faith. It is still active today.

1798: The Irish Rebellion takes place, but fails.

1801: The United Kingdom is formed. The acts informing this are still in force in Northern Ireland today.

1886: Home Rule as a movement begins. This movement intended Ireland to again have its own parliament and be capable of self-rule while under British control. It takes multiple iterations to pass, and there is a lot of pushback from Unionists afraid that the Parliament will end up controlled by the Catholics.

1905: Left wing separatist group Sinn Féin is formed.

1912: The Ulster Volunteer Force is formed by Unionists as a response to those same fears of being a minority Protestant in a largely Catholic country.

1913: Nationalists form the Irish Volunteers as a response to the formation of the UVF.

1914: World War I starts, which interrupts the conflict that had been brewing between the two groups.

1919: The Irish War of Independence between the IRA and the British begins.

1920: The Government of Ireland Act is passed, splitting Ireland into north and south. Both are intended to have their own Home Rule, but the War of Independence means that it is never instituted in the south.

1921: The War of Independence ends. The Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed.

1922: The Irish Civil War begins.

1923: The Irish Civil War ends.

1930-1950: Multiple riots in Belfast. Several IRA campaigns take place during this time as well.

1962: The IRA calls off their campaign.

1966: The modern Ulster Volunteer Force is formed. While there is some disagreement about when The Troubles officially began, the formation of the UVF is the earliest-cited trigger. Around this same time, the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee is formed, with the Reverend Ian Paisley at the helm.

1968: Civil rights marches begin taking place in August. Loyalists attack nationalist marchers and hold counter-demonstrations in an effort to get the marches banned. In October, a civil rights march in Derry is banned. Protestors defy the ban and are brutally beaten by police. These beatings are shown on the news, which goes global. The outrage regarding this incident sparks two days of rioting in Derry.

1969: Ongoing protests, beatings, riots, bombings, and sabotage. The violence is horrific and escalating. Businesses are torched, and homes are destroyed. During the August Battle of the Bogside, after the British Army is deployed to the area, The Prime Minister calls for a UN peacekeeping force to be brought in. In September, a “peace line” is formed in Belfast between the Falls and Shankhill areas. This line is initially barbed wire, but it’s understood that the line will be permanent and reinforced. The British Army begins building “peace walls” in September as well, some of which are still standing today.

1970: A three-day curfew is called in the Falls area of Belfast in July as the British searches homes in the strongly nationalist neighbourhood for weapons. Tear gas is used by the British, and there is a lot of property damage. The curfew ends when members of a neighbouring community march on the sealed-off area to provide food and supplies to their neighbours.

1971: Internment is introduced in August. 342 people suspected of being involved with the IRA are arrested and held without trial. Of the 1,981 people who end up being held under this policy (which ended in December 1975), 1,874 are nationalist.

1972: January 18th, the Prime Minister bans parades and marches til the end of the year. January 30th, a Sunday, in the Bogside area of Derry, an anti-internment march takes place. Initially, the march is planned to go to from Bishop’s Hall to Guildhall Square in the city centre where they will rally, but officials believe that if it gets that far, riots will take place, so it is only allowed to go within Catholic areas. 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment of the British Army takes up positions throughout the city, prepared to quell any rioting. 1 Para, as it is known, has a reputation for excessive violence.

January 30th 1972, 2:45pm: Between 10 and 15,000 people march that day. As marchers near the city centre, British soldiers block their path. The organizers redirect the march, aiming instead to the Free Derry Corner. Some marchers splinter off, encountering paratroopers. They throw stones at the troops; the troops respond with CS gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets. Two men are shot and wounded.

3:55pm: Some in the crowd spot paratroopers in a derelict building and begin throwing stones at the windows. Paratroopers open fire. Two civilians are shot.

4:07pm: Approximately 12 minutes later, paratroopers are given the order to begin arresting rioters. Only one company is intended to go, and they are told not to chase the rioters, as they may rejoin the group of marchers, but the command is disobeyed. Paratroopers, on foot and in vehicles, go through the barriers and begin seizing people. There are reports of “paratroopers beating people, clubbing them with rifle butts, firing rubber bullets at them from close range, making threats to kill, and hurling abuse.”

4:10pm: A large group is chased into the Rossville car park. Surrounded on three sides by apartment buildings, the protesters are effectively kettled. The soldiers open fire, wounding six and killing one. The fatality is a seventeen year old boy named Jack Duddy running alongside a priest; he is shot in the back as he runs. He is the first fatality of the day. Another group runs into the Glenfada parking lot, another kettled area. Soldiers shoot across the parking lot, some from the hip. Two more people are killed, and at least four more injured. Soldiers go south through the park, splitting off near the exits. They kill two more civilians at the southwest corner. At the south east corner, four more people are shot, two of whom also die. At about the same time, a group of paratroopers square off against a group of rioters at a rubble barricade on Rossville who are throwing stones. Though they are not close enough to hit the paratroopers, the paratroopers open fire, killing six and wounding a seventh.

Approximately 4:20pm: The shooting stops. In all, 28 people have been shot by the soldiers. 13 boys and men die that day, and another succumbs to his injuries four months later. Of the victims, six are only seventeen years old. The eldest is 59 years old–he wasn’t even a part of the march; he had been on his way to visit a friend and got caught up in the melee. The official British position is that the shooting was necessitated by self-defence, but “no British soldier was [found to have been] wounded by gunfire or reported any injuries, nor were any bullets or nail bombs recovered to back up their claims.”

April 19, 1972: The initial report from the Widgery Inquiry is released. It supports the Army’s claims, and is felt to be whitewashed, and there are attempts to open new inquiries over the years.

1998: Tony Blair opens a new inquiry, to be chaired by Lord Saville.

2010: The Saville Report is released on June 15th. It concludes “that all of those shot were unarmed and that none were posing a serious threat. It also conclude[s] that none of the soldiers fired in response to attacks, or threatened attacks, by gunmen or bomb-throwers. No warnings were given before soldiers opened fire.”

2019: In March, it is announced that Soldier F will be prosecuted for two murders and five attempted murders. Though the Saville Report concludes that Soldier F was also responsible for three other murders that day, some of the evidence is inadmissible, and a key witness has died in the interim. Families of the victims are devastated that Soldier F is the only one who will be held accountable. In December, the trial is adjourned to January 17th, 2020.

I’d like to dedicate this column to the memory of my high school boyfriend Stewart. Ian Paisley was a weird choice of dates, but it was certainly memorable. Thank you for showing me the glory of Guinness in a tin. Rest well, friend. You are remembered and missed. Go Whalers. Éire go Brách.