Sunday 30th January 1972 was the day of the most memorable riots. This march was a civil rights march consisting of about 10,000 people or so. Gathering in the area Creggan of Derry, the riot was between groups of local youths and the army at barricades set up, trying to eradicate the march reaching its actual destination of guildhall square, soldiers were then told to move in and make arrests. In the process of this, the youths were throwing stones and rocks, in retaliation the soldiers retaliated with water canons, rubber bullets and CS Gas then finally opened fire on the crowd, killing thirteen males and wounding 13 others males.
The dead number of males, aged between seventeen and forty-one. Also another wounded man of 59 years died later on.The other wounded included a young fifteen-year-old male and another female adult. The British Army had claimed that its soldiers had responded after coming under fire,but the citizens were not hearing this and viewed it as murder. The British government were very worried for the Home Secretary to announce the following day an official inquiry into the outcomes of the shootings that took place.
British Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery made His report relieving the army and casting suspicion upon the of victims from the attack, implying that they were some what handling bombs and guns. Relatives of the dead victims campaigned for a fresh public inquiry, of which was finally granted by PM- Tony Blair in 1998.
12 years later due to Lord Saville the Bloody Sunday inquiry finally reported. This report establishing the victims innocence and once took responsibility for what happened from the army.On this day my family and our close friends from Ireland remembered the people that had died and hoped for them to seek justice.We remembered them by having a two minutes of silence reading poems we wrote ourselves to remember the Sunday morning of January 30th 1972.
