Bloody Sunday 50: Massive turnout for Bloody Sunday march

The size of the Bloody Sunday March Committee demonstration seemed to surprise even the organisers as people from all over Ireland and further afield braved fierce weather to show solidarity with the victims’ families.

The march set off behind a coal lorry liveried with the branding of Joe McGlinchey, the coalman, just as it had on January 30, 1972, when the people of Derry had turned out en masse to protest against internment.

The civil rights anthem ‘We Shall Overcome’ was played as the anniversary march made its way down Linsfort Drive and onlookers got a sense of the massive turnout.

The ‘Journal’ counted 20 minutes before the rear of the march had passed the Bishop’s Field. Relatives carried white crosses in remembrance of the dead and paused at various points as the march wound its way through the streets of Creggan and the Bogside to Free Derry corner where Bernadette McAliskey fittingly addressed the crowd.

Ms. McAliskey, who was then MP for Mid Ulster, was the first person scheduled to speak on Bloody Sunday, but had been forced to take cover when the British Parachute Regiment opened fire as she picked up the microphone.

On Sunday she said: “This was a day on which nobody went berserk. Nobody lost the run of themselves in the British army. This was the day when the change of British government policy, which had started weeks, if not months, before came to fruition on these streets.”