30/01/2026
On this day, 30 January 1972, British soldiers opened fire on unarmed civil rights protesters in the Bogside, killing 14 people in what became known as Bloody Sunday. The protesters were opposing the policy of internment, which allowed the authorities to imprison suspected members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) without trial.
The previous year, on August 9, 1971, soldiers detained 342 people, many of whom were tortured and had no connection to the IRA. This disastrous policy led to an immediate increase in violence, with 17 people killed within the next 48 hours. Then, on January 22, 1972, soldiers attacked an anti-internment protest in Derry, firing rubber bullets and beating protesters severely. But the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was determined not to be intimidated.
On January 30, around 10,000 people marched towards the city centre, but their route was blocked by army barricades. Some of the protesters threw stones at the soldiers, who responded with rubber bullets and teargas.
Nearby, soldiers opened fire wounding a 59-year-old man, who subsequently died from his injuries, and a 15-year-old boy. About 15 minutes later, soldiers from the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment opened fire in the Rossville Street area, killing 13 people, seven of whom were teenagers. At least 14 others were injured.
The army claimed that soldiers had been shot at and attacked with nail bombs, a myth upheld by a hastily conducted sham tribunal overseen by the Lord Chief Justice. The official version of events contradicted every independent eyewitness account.
Yet it wasn’t until the safety of 2010 that a government report finally acknowledged the innocence of the victims and the indiscriminate and unjustifiable violence of the British Army. That violence and the state cover up had terrible consequences, not just for the victims and their families, but for everyone in Northern Ireland and many beyond. Like internment, Bloody Sunday provided the IRA with a huge recruitment boost, and 1972 was the single most violent year of the Troubles.
In 2025, one soldier was eventually put on trial for murder and attempted murder, and was acquitted.
