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.