Republican News · Thursday 30 January 1997

[An Phoblacht]

Witness for truth

In extracts from Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, Jane Winter describes the atmosphere in the days before Bloody Sunday and Don Mullan considers the mystery surrounding three of those killed that day

The Political Background

A week before the Bloody Sunday demonstration, a smaller anti-internment demonstration had been held outside the internment camp at Magilligan, not far from Derry. This demonstration had been broken up with extreme violence by about 300 soldiers. NICRA was anxious to avoid a repetition, and placed `special emphasis on the necessity for a peaceful incident-free day' on 30 January. According to Ivan Cooper, a Member of Parliament at the time and one of the organisers of the march, assurances had been obtained from the IRA that it would withdraw from the area during the demonstration. The IRA confirmed that this was the case to the Insight team of reporters who published their own analysis of Bloody Sunday.

On 27 January 1972 the Democratic Unionist Association in Derry, in an act of provocation aimed at both nationalists and the Stormont government, announced that its members intended to hold a public religious rally in the Guildhall Square, the intended termination point if the NICRA march, on Sunday 30 January. The Association's Vice-President, the Rev James McClelland, was reported as saying, ``The civil rights march is not legal.''

Theirs (the DUA's), he said, would be. He continued: ``The authorities will have to keep their word and stop the civil rights march and give us protection.''

On 30 January, several newspapers announced that the religious rally had been called off. McClelland was reported as saying on the previous day: ``We were approached by the Government and given assurances that the Civil Rights march would be halted - by force if necessary. We believe wholesale riot and bloodshed could be the result of the Civil Rights activities tomorrow and we would be held responsible if our rally takes place. We have appealed to all loyalists to stay out of the city centre tomorrow.''

Thus the demonstration on Bloody Sunday took place against a background of high political tension and in an atmosphere of the apprehension of violence, which would have been apparent to the security forces as it was to everyone else involved.

Jane Winter
Director
British Irish Rights Watch

Framed

There is an unsolved mystery about the killings of John Young, William Nash and Michael McDaid - who killed them and from where?

There is also something curious and unsettling about their removals from Rossville Street barricade.

All three lay dead and dying on the barricade for fifteen to twenty minutes. No one - absolutely no one, including parents, pastors and paramedics - was allowed to go near them. Alexander Nash, for example, on seeing the fallen body of his son, William, did what any father would do, and ran to his aid. He was shot and lay wounded during that interminable period.

At a coroner's inquest he stated the following: ``I went into Glenfada Park and I heard shouting. I turned back to Rossville Street and as I turned I saw three bodies at a wee barricade across Rossville Street. I identified one of the bodies as that of my son, William Noel Nash. I ran across and put my hand up to stop the shooting so that I could lift my son out of the way. I could see that he was dead. As I was trying to stop the shooting bullets were striking the barricade and I received two bullet wounds. I saw the army put the three bodies in a Saracen and I was left to go to the hospital by ambulance.''

At approximately 4.30pm a Saracen armoured vehicle slowly advanced towards the barricade and all three bodies were manhandled by Paras and dumped `like refuse' into the Saracen.

There were at least four other bodies within sight of the Paras who collected Young, Nash and McDaid from the barricade. While collecting their bodies the Paras would have had sight of Paddy Doherty, Bernard McGuigan and Hugh Gilmore in the forecourt of the Rossville Flats, and Jim Wray and others in Glenfada. They all lay within a 30-yard radius. All of these, as well as Alexander Nash who was beside the bodies at the barricade, were ignored. Why?

The bodies of John Young, Michael McDaid and William Nash were not taken to Altnagelvin Hospital by the British Army until after 6pm. Fr John Irwin, who had managed through persistence to give the Last Rites to the three bodies in the Saracen, saw them later delivered to the hospital mortuary at 6.15 pm. There are questions concerning whether or not young McDaid was actually dead when thrown into the Saracen. There are questions as to why the army took so long to bring these bodies to the hospital and what they were doing with them in the meantime.

The forensic evidence used against Young, Nash and McDaid was very positive. There probably wasn't a hair on their head which wasn't contaminated. It certainly proved that they were in very close proximity to people using guns - the Paras.

For almost a quarter of a century many in Derry have been nursing an anger over the way these innocent young men, and others, were coldly and very deliberately framed. The possibility of their heads and chests being framed in the telescopic sight of a marksman's weapon, high up or near the Walls, had never crossed our minds.

Don Mullan

Eyewitness Bloody Sunday
By Don Mullan
Published by Wolfhound Press
Price £8.99

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