'I'll never forgive Bloody Sunday' - McAliskey

One-time civil rights campaigner Bernadette McAliskey said today she could never forgive the British Government for setting off decades of killing with the Bloody Sunday shootings 29 years ago.

In an emotional oration at the Saville Inquiry, the former Mid Ulster MP claimed the British Army had declared war on people seeking justice when its Paratroopers shot dead 13 men and youths in Derry in January 1972.

Mrs McAliskey, who has long since left public life, narrowly escaped with her own life that day, shots apparently fired from the walls of Derry hitting a wall behind her as she addressed civil rights demonstrators gathered in the city’s Bogside.

The following day she physically attacked then Home Secretary Reginald Maudling in the House of Commons and afterwards came out in favour of both wings of the IRA avenging each of the deaths.

She said: ‘‘My most abiding memory is, not that I hit that waster in the House of Commons, but that I stood outside it and said that I would not have a tear to shed if 26 other coffins followed.

‘‘Three thousand and more coffins followed and years of imprisonment and torture and pain and sorrow followed and it is highly arguable that without Bloody Sunday, where we are today, we would have been in in 1972.

‘‘I cannot forgive the British Government for that and this public inquiry cannot sort that out.’’