Soldiers attacked civil rights marchers, inquiry told

A man fleeing the carnage on Bloody Sunday told IRA men at the scene that British soldiers were trying to kill civil rights marchers, the Saville Inquiry heard today.

Eamonn McCourt, who was 22 at the time, recalled his terror at hearing the ‘‘zing’’ of bullets after gunfire erupted in Derry during the march in January 1972 which led to 14 people being killed.

As he tried to get home Mr McCourt said he saw a car with possibly four men in it who he knew to be IRA members.

‘‘At this stage I was still running as fast as I could, but as I ran past they asked me what was going on. I replied ‘They are trying to kill us’,’’ his statement said.

He told Christopher Clarke QC, counsel to the inquiry, that his belief in the men’s IRA status was based on rumour and he did not know them.

They had no weapons that could be seen, he added.

Mr McCourt told the tribunal he attended many civil rights marches to voice anger at the treatment of Catholics in Northern Ireland at the time.

‘‘We all considered ourselves to be young rebels, even those of us like me who were not in arms,’’ he said.

He said he was one of the first people to arrive at Free Derry Corner, and recalled seeing a woman and elderly man on the platform when gunfire was heard.

Fleeing towards maisonettes to the north of Westland Street he said there seemed to be hundreds of shots fired.

‘‘Women were screaming and it was fairly chaotic. All I could think of was ‘Why are people shooting at us?’’’

At the time of the shootings Mr McCourt was working as a fitter in a firm where he was the only Catholic.

Returning to work after the victims’ funerals, he recalled being shocked by the bitterness among colleagues who he said thought those shot had been IRA members and deserved their fate.

He said: ‘‘I was extremely angry about this. I was on the march and could have been killed; I certainly was not an IRA member.’’

His anger erupted again when he argued with a Protestant in a pub who claimed 20 people had been shot and the IRA were involved in a damage limitation exercise so it did not appear it had been ‘‘wiped out’’.

‘‘As far as I was concerned, this was completely untrue,’’ he said.