Bloody Sunday

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On 30 January 1972 British troops opened fire on a civil rights march in Northern Ireland. Thirteen people were killed that day, which became known as Bloody Sunday. Tony Doherty was nine years old at the time. In 2012 he spoke to Mike Lanchin about his father and the events that changed his life forever.

Photo: A British soldier grabs hold of a protester by the hair. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC
0:35.4	Sounds. Hello and thank you for downloading the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:47.0	This week we're marking the 50th anniversary of what became known as Bloody Sunday, when British paratroopers shot dead
0:56.0	13 protesters at a civil rights march in Northern Ireland in January 1972. The deaths were a turning point in one of Europe's longest-running sectarian
1:07.9	conflicts. In 2012, Mike Lanchin spoke to Tony Doherty, whose father Patrick was killed on Bloody Sunday.
1:17.0	It's January the 30th, 1972, and the streets of Londonderry are bristling with tension.
1:27.0	Brits and bottles are hurled at British soldiers by protesters, angry at new government powers to detain suspected terrorists
1:35.4	indefinitely. The soldiers respond with rubber bullets. But later the soldiers start to use live ammunition against the demonstrators.
1:47.0	The first body I saw was that of a youth being carried out by other civilians with a priest in the lead,
1:55.7	waving a bloodied handkerchief as a white flag.
1:58.2	As firing continued, we've made our way gingerly forward across an open space
2:05.8	devoid of cover to the Rossville flats where we were to see more bodies and more
2:11.0	evidence of fatalities.
2:13.3	By the end of the day, 13 civilians lie dead.
2:17.4	My first memory of that late afternoon was when I was playing in the street there was a couple of
2:24.7	boys of my age and one of them just chirped up out of the blue your father has
2:31.8	been shiad. Tony Doherty was just nine years old. out of the blue, your father has been shed.
	...

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