Through a child’s eye - witnessing the aftermath of Bloody Sunday

I walked along Rossville Street with my mother, brothers and sisters towards the Rossville flats where my Granny Casey lived. I was only eight years old.

As we walked towards the flats, I could see blood stains and shoes scattered around on the streets. I could see people standing all around and children kneeling down praying beside the blood stains. Many people were standing crying amidst what seemed like an eerie silence.

I didn’t understand what was going on - after all, I was only eight years old. I did not know what had happened on the day before... the day that became known as Bloody Sunday.

I asked my mother what was going on. She told me that bad men had killed people the day before.

Trying to make sense of it, I kept looking at the blood and the shoes on the streets as she took us towards the flats.

I asked her where all the dead people had gone.

The only death that I had experienced was from the television. My mother told me that God and the angels had come down and lifted the people to heaven from the place where their bodies lay.

I wondered why people did not get into heaven with their shoes on.

I did not remember much afterwards after Bloody Sunday, although my mother and father took us to the funerals. I remember trying to understand what was in the boxes if the people had already gone to heaven.

I do know that something died in our community that day. Things never seemed to be the same again. The impact of Bloody Sunday can be felt to this day.

{Attending the Bloody Sunday Inquiry at the Guildhall} The sad but understandable thing is you can see the pain that the families still live with... that of losing a family member, a father, a brother, a son, an uncle or a close friend.

The people killed that day were just ordinary people who took to the streets for their civil rights and decent living conditions which had been denied to them for many, many years.
This is just the story of an innocent eight-year-old at the time of Bloody Sunday.