In the shadow of Bloody Sunday

On her first visit to Ireland in 1972, an in-love Sue Leonard was enchanted by its beauty and shocked by the violent aftermath of Bloody Sunday

ON Jan 29, 1972, I came on holiday to Ireland. I’d never visited before, though my grandmother, who was Irish, had filled me with stories and fables of her homeland. I was 19, and in my second year as a student nurse in London. We’d been miffed when told January was our allotted time for a holiday — but my new boyfriend, an Irishman based in London, jumped at the chance to show me his country.

And so we arrived; by boat, on a grey Saturday evening. We went to stay with his mother, who lived in a large early Victorian house in Killiney, facing the sea. I remember, that first evening, having my first taste of soda bread. And loving it.