Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [565]
Since then the area has been extensively redeveloped, the old houses and flats demolished and replaced with modern housing, and the population is now down to 8000. All that remains of the old Bogside is Free Derry Corner (Map) at the intersection of Fahan and Rossville Sts, where the gable end of a house painted with the famous slogan ‘You Are Now Entering Free Derry’ still stands. Nearby is the H-shaped Hunger Strikers’ Memorial (Map; see also Click here) and, a little further north along Rossville St, the Bloody Sunday Memorial (Map), a simple granite obelisk that commemorates the 14 civilians who were shot dead by the British Army on 30 January 1972.
The Museum of Free Derry (Map; 7136 0880; www.museumoffreederry.org; 55-61 Glenfada Park; adult/child £3/2; 9.30am-4.30pm Mon-Fri year-round, 1-4pm Sat Apr-Sep, 1-4pm Sun Jul-Sep), just off Rossville St, chronicles the history of the Bogside, the civil rights movement and the events of Bloody Sunday through photographs, newspaper reports, film clips and the accounts of first-hand witnesses, including some of the original photographs that inspired the murals of the People’s Gallery.
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SUNDAY, BLOODY SUNDAY
Tragically echoing Dublin’s Bloody Sunday of November 1920, when British security forces shot dead 14 spectators at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park, Derry’s Bloody Sunday was a turning point in the history of the Troubles.
On Sunday, 30 January 1972, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association organised a peaceful march through Derry in protest against internment without trial, which had been introduced by the British government the previous year. Some 15,000 people marched from Creggan through the Bogside towards the Guildhall, but they were stopped by British Army barricades at the junction of William and Rossville Sts. The main march was diverted along Rossville St to Free Derry Corner, but a small number of youths began hurling stones and insults at the British soldiers.
The exact sequence of events is disputed, but it now seems clear that soldiers of the 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment opened fire on unarmed civilians. Fourteen people were shot dead, some of them shot in the back; six were aged just 17. Another 14 people were injured, 12 by gunshots and two from being knocked down by armoured personnel carriers. The Catholic population of Derry, who had originally welcomed the British troops as a neutral force protecting them from Protestant violence and persecution, now saw the army as enemy and occupier. The ranks of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) swelled with a fresh surge of volunteers.
The Widgery Commission, set up to in 1972 to investigate the affair, failed to find anyone responsible. None of the soldiers who fired at civilians, nor the officers in charge, were brought to trial or even disciplined; records disappeared and weapons were destroyed.
Long-standing public dissatisfaction with the Widgery investigation led to the massive Bloody Sunday Inquiry (www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk), headed by Lord Saville, which sat from March 2000 till December 2004. The inquiry heard from 900 witnesses, received 2500 witness statements, and allegedly cost British taxpayers £400 million; its final report, originally due to be published in 2007, was, at the time of writing, not expected until 2010.
The events of Bloody Sunday inspired rock band U2’s most overtly political song, ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ (1983), and are commemorated in the Museum of Free Derry, the People’s Gallery and the Bloody Sunday Monument, all in the Bogside.
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People’s Gallery
The 12 murals that decorate the gable ends of houses along Rossville St, near Free Derry Corner, are popularly referred to as the People’s Gallery. They are the work of Tom Kelly, Will Kelly and Kevin Hasson, known as ‘The Bogside Artists’ (see boxed text, Click here). The three men have spent most of their lives in the Bogside, and lived through the worst of the Troubles.
Their murals,