Yes, It Was Murder: 'Bloody Sunday' Report Released at Last

Bloody Sunday's Architects
Peter Pringle
June 24, 2010

The British excel at political theater, but the carefully staged publication of the long-awaited Saville report on Bloody Sunday produced an effect no government choreographer could possibly have predicted. A large crowd, several hundred strong, of Northern Ireland's nationalists had gathered by a TV screen in front of Derry's Victorian Guildhall awaiting—anxiously, fearfully—an announcement to accompany the publication by the new Tory prime minister, David Cameron. Four words caused the crowd to raise a prolonged cheer: "I am deeply sorry," Cameron told the House of Commons.

Yes, It Was Murder: 'Bloody Sunday' Report Released at Last

'Bloody Sunday' Apologies, What About Monday?

After thirty-eight years, the British government had finally, officially, apologized for the shooting by paratroopers of twenty-seven unarmed Catholics, thirteen of whom died, as they marched protesting internment-without-trial through Derry's Bogside on January 30, 1972...