LONDONDERRY : Five decades after British soldiers killed 13 unarmed Catholic civil rights marchers on one of the defining days of the Northern Ireland conflict, relatives are still searching for the justice they believe is needed for a scarred society to heal.
Family and friends of the 13 Catholics who died in Londonderry on “Bloody Sunday”, Jan. 30, 1972 – and of a 14th who died later of his wounds – gathered this week for a series of commemorations to mark the event that helped fuel three decades of bitter sectarian and political violence.
While a judicial inquiry found in 2010 that the victims were innocent and had posed no threat to the military, the commemorations come just months after prosecutors announced that the only British soldier charged with murder will not face trial.
Our generation are very slowly dying off… and we would like to see it [justice] when we’re still alive,” said Jean Hegarty, whose brother Kevin McElhinney was shot dead aged 17. She supports legal action to bring the soldier to trial.
“My head would say no, but my heart would still like to believe that we can see at least some soldiers face a court,” she said.
