Sunday Bloody Sunday

Sunday Bloody Sunday 

 

Do you know the origin to U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday? I didn’t know until today.

 For years I knew there was a back-story U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday but I didn’t know what it was. Today while listening to U2s infamous song my brain told me to check out the song. Wow my mind was shocked I didn’t know anything about this tragic incident. 

For those like me who were let down by the American education system here is a short summary. For years Catholics and Protestants of Ireland were at each others’ throats on how to run the country and who ran it among other issues. There was a combination of violent and non-violent protest on both sides of the issues. Finally the British sent in troops to hopefully control the situation but things spiraled out of control leading to a few deaths on Catholics and Protestants and the British military. 

January 30, 1972 a group of Roman Catholic protestors met up with the intentions of making their way to Guildhall. The protestors’ way was blocked by a blockade made by the local troops and some of British military. While the main group of people moved in another direction by those leading the protest and efforts of the military. Some protestors still remained and the control forces got the order to get the remaining protestors to move out to prevent anything from getting out of hand. And this is where things are fuzzy. 

The control forces claimed they were fired upon after possibly firing warning shots. More shots were fired possibly only fired by the military forces. When the smoke cleared 13 men were dead and several more injured including one who would later die. Not much is known on what exactly happened but from a couple after incident investigations it appears that at least most if not all people who died were un-armed. Some of the initial people who were hit by bullets were trying to flee the scene. There are also a few known cases where people who were killed were actually trying to help the wounded (based off eyewitness accounts and footage from the scene). 

Okay rock fanatics I know Sunday Bloody Sunday, is U2 singing about two different events dealing with massacre that fell on a Sundayin Ireland. I feel like the massacre on Jan. 1972 has a bigger part on development of the song. At the time of the incident the lead singer and song writer Bono was roughly 12 years old at the time of the incident which was highly covered in the news media. You cannot tell me that this massacre of possibly innocent people who look just like him did not have an everlasting affect on a young Bono. 

Rest in Peace

Patrick ‘Paddy’ Doherty, Gerald Donaghey, John ‘Jackie’ Duddy, Hugh Gilmour, Michael Kelly, Michael McDaid, Kevin McElhinney, Bernard ‘Barney’ McGuigan, Gerald McKinney, William ‘Willie’ McKinney, William Nash, James ‘Jim’ Wray, John Young, and John Johnston 

Disclaimer: Any images shown are not mine and are used out of respect for their owners.  I know my grammar and spelling is rather poor that's what happens when you have dyslexia and a brain that thinks faster than your hands can type.