On Bloody Sunday

In January 1972, a peaceful civil rights march in Northern Ireland ended in bloodshed. Troops from Britain’s 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment opened fire on marchers, leaving 13 dead and 15 wounded. The day became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’. Within hours, the British military informed the world that they had won an ‘IRA gun battle’. This became the official narrative for decades until a family-led campaign instigated one of the most complex inquiries in history. In 2010, the victims of Bloody Sunday were fully exonerated when Lord Saville found that the majority of the victims were either shot in the back as they ran away or were helping someone in need. While many buried the trauma of that day, historian and campaigner Juliann Campbell – whose teenage uncle was the first to be killed – felt the need to keep recording these interviews, and collecting rare and unpublished accounts.