“Bloody Sunday” most commonly refers to 30 January 1972, when British soldiers shot unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry (Londonderry), Northern Ireland, killing 13 people that day and fatally wounding another who later died. It became one of the defining atrocities of the Troubles and radically intensified anger against the British state.

Key facts in a nutshell

  • Date: 30 January 1972.
  • Place: Derry (Londonderry), Northern Ireland, mainly in the Bogside area around Rossville Street.
  • Event: A large march against internment (imprisonment without trial) organized by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.
  • What happened: Soldiers of the British Army’s 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment opened fire on demonstrators and bystanders.
  • Death toll: 13 unarmed Catholic civilians were killed on the day; one of the wounded later died, making 14 in total.
  • Victims: All those shot dead were found by the later Saville Inquiry to have been unarmed.

How the day unfolded

The march set out peacefully to protest internment, drawing thousands of mainly Catholic participants who intended to hold a rally in the city centre. British authorities had banned such marches, and the army erected barriers to contain the demonstration within the nationalist Bogside area.

Tension rose when some youths threw stones and bottles at troops at the barriers, and soldiers responded with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets. Shortly after, paratroopers were sent through the barriers, ostensibly to arrest rioters, but they rapidly pushed deep into the Bogside streets and opened fire with live ammunition.

Over about ten to twenty minutes, soldiers shot multiple people in several locations, including near a barricade on Rossville Street, in the Rossville Flats courtyard, and in Glenfada Park. Some victims were shot while fleeing or while trying to help the wounded, and several were hit in the back or while lying or crawling on the ground.

Why it matters so much

Bloody Sunday transformed the conflict in Northern Ireland, massively boosting support for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and deepening mistrust of British rule among the Catholic/nationalist community. It also drew global condemnation and became an enduring symbol of state violence against civil rights movements.

A first official investigation, the Widgery Tribunal in 1972, largely cleared the soldiers and was widely denounced as a whitewash. Decades later, the more comprehensive Saville Inquiry concluded in 2010 that the killings were “unjustified and unjustifiable,” leading UK Prime Minister David Cameron to issue a formal apology on behalf of the British government.

Different “Bloody Sundays”

The phrase “Bloody Sunday” is also used for several other violent days in history (for example, a 1905 massacre in St. Petersburg and an 1887 protest in London), but in English-language news and forums it most often means the 1972 Derry shootings unless otherwise specified. When people online ask “what happened on Bloody Sunday,” they are usually talking about the 1972 events in Northern Ireland.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.