The Troubles: Bloody Sunday (Part 4)

On the afternoon of January 30, 1972, a Catholic priest named Edward Daly waved a blood-stained handkerchief as a white flag while trying to carry a 17-year-old boy named Jackie Duddy to safety. Duddy died moments later, with Daly holding his hand and giving him last rites. He was one of 13 unarmed civilians shot dead by British paratroopers during a civil rights march in Derry—a day that became known as Bloody Sunday. The event was the single most controversial moment of the entire Troubles, and it would take 38 years and a £200 million inquiry before a British prime minister finally stood in the House of Commons and declared that what happened was "both unjustified and unjustifiable."

The Road to Confrontation

By the autumn of 1971, Northern Ireland was spiraling. The disaster of internment—the mass arrest of suspected IRA members without trial—had radicalized the Catholic population, while sectarian bomb attacks had pushed tensions to the breaking point. Stormont Prime Minister Brian Faulkner flew to London in October to warn Ted Heath that if the bombings continued, "a breakdown in government might occur in a matter of weeks." Heath was sympathetic but paralyzed by impossible options.