Sometimes it seems that there’s never anything but tragic news coming out of Derry. I have to remind myself that there are plenty of wonderful things happening in the town I love so well and so many wonderful people who call it home…but yesterday as I sought those out my heart sank yet again. The headlines screamed out the news of a young woman who was killed in the crossfire on the city streets and it broke my heart.
Tag Archives: civilian deaths
Dublin’s Bloody Sunday
When one thinks of Bloody Sunday, what usually comes to mind is the 1972 civil rights march in Derry, where English soldiers opened fire on marchers and brutally murdered fourteen innocent people. This incident shocked the world and spilled over into pop culture leading to multiple songs, movies, documentaries and more – making it one of the most notorious moments in Irish history. It was not the first “Bloody Sunday” in Ireland, but (thankfully) it was the last. There have been four dreadful days known as Bloody Sunday in recent Irish history and the second (and most deadly) one occurred on this date, November 21st, 1920, in Dublin.
Operation Motorman
Operation Motorman was the code name given to a mission carried out by the British Army in the North of Ireland on July 31st, 1972. The goal was to forcibly reassert control over the Nationalist and Republican areas where they were not welcome with a particular focus in the cities of Derry and Belfast. In these cities, nearly impenetrable barricades had been erected in many neighborhoods barring any soldiers from entering or policing the communities. When the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated more than twenty bombs in Belfast on July 21st of that year, the English government decided that the “No-go” areas in these towns would no longer be tolerated and Operation Motorman was born.