IRA fired in breach of orders, Bloody Sunday inquiry told

Both the Provisional IRA and Official IRA gave orders to their members not to fire any shots on Bloody Sunday, but some did, a distinguished journalist who carried out a major investigation of the killings 30 years ago told the Saville Inquiry today.

Peter Pringle, who was a member of the Sunday Times Insight team which carried out their own probe in the aftermath of the killing by Paratroopers of 13 civilians on the civil rights march on January 30 1972, said his team had spoken to both wings of the IRA about their involvement on that day.

In his statement to the Inquiry, taking place in the Guildhall in Derry, he said: ‘‘The essence of what they told us was that they had not been involved and had issued orders to their membership not to fire any shots.’’

That was corroborated by independent witnesses who overheard orders being given to both wings of the IRA, he said.

But he added: ‘‘However, we concluded that several shots had been fired by the IRA after the main firing by the Army.’’

The newspaper investigators had been convinced the attitude of both wings of the IRA was that the local community’s opposition to internment was surprisingly strong and ‘‘that they should not interfere with the protest marches’’.

He said the reason for that was partly that if they did get involved, they did not want to be blamed for anything that might go wrong.

‘‘They were encouraged by the challenge to the authorities that the illegal march represented and just wanted to observe what happened.

‘‘Also, they felt that if they attended and engaged the Army in the Bogside, their stores of weapons in the Creggan estate would be exposed and vulnerable to an Army raid; nobody would be left there to defend the almost deserted area.’’

Despite that decision, it would not rule out ‘‘freelance’’ activity by some of the organisations’ members, he said.

The Insight team concluded one shot was fired at the Army by a ‘‘freelancer’’ from Columbcille Court, he said. The team also concluded that a number of other shots were fired at the army.

There was evidence of low velocity shots in Glenfada Park and shots in the Brandywell area ‘‘after the army had called a ceasefire.’’

Mr Pringle also said his team became convinced no members of the IRA had been killed on Bloody Sunday.

If an IRA man was killed he was a hero in the community, he said. It was not in their credo to cover up a death.

‘‘The idea that the IRA could impose a wall of silence over a community where one of their sons had been killed just does not ring true,’’ he said.

Mr Pringle gave evidence to day 190 of the public hearings by the Saville Inquiry but refused to sign his statement.

He said it was because despite many requests he had still not been provided by the inquiry with copies or details of its correspondence with the Sunday Times that resulted in the release of the Insight archive.

Mr Pringle, now a freelance journalist working in New York, hit out at his former employers for releasing the archive material to the Inquiry.

‘‘The release of the archive by the Sunday Times involved the disclosure of confidential sources of information, in contravention of our (ie journalists’) code of ethics.

‘‘I would like to emphasise that this release by the Sunday Times was made without reference to myself or as far as I am aware, any of the other Sunday Times journalists involved.’’