Bloody Sunday’s long shadow

THE lives of many of us, apart from the central protagonists, have been shaped by the terrible events in Derry/Londonderry on January 30, 1972.

Those of us who are English and were living in Dublin at that time have had to face truths that we have heartily wished not to have had to face.

By one of those coincidences that add ironic point to tragic events the great Irish rugby XV of the late 1960s and early ‘70s (an All-Ireland XV, then as now) had gone to Paris and defeated the French at Stade Colombes for the first time in 20 years.

The triumphant players came home to meet expressions of disbelief and despair and, of course, mounting indignation.

Much worse was yet to come as events unfolded and justice was denied by a judiciary more concerned with reputation than with truth.

In the late 1980s it fell to my lot to teach Shane Paul O’Doherty ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ in Trinity College Dublin.

He had been in Derry on that fateful day, had joined the IRA in consequence and had served 14 years in solitary confinement for his part in London bombings.

I take this opportunity to express my admiration for the great moral courage and the love of peace that had brought him to us.

Last Tuesday was a vindication for him as it is for many others.

We cannot make others love justice, but we can love it in ourselves. And we are pleased to see justice done, even if unjustly postponed for 38 years. Let us hope Bloody Sunday will teach us the need to cherish the innocent and to seek justice in all walks of life.

Dr Gerald Morgan

School of English

Trinity College

Dublin 2