At its heart, Bloody Sunday was a devastating personal tragedy involving the deaths of 13 men and boys, six of whom were only 17 years old. The victims were taking part in a civil rights protest march against internment. In 30 minutes, 21 soldiers from the British Army’s parachute regiment fired 108 live rounds into the crowd. What followed in 1972 was a serious escalation of violence and the bloodiest year of the Troubles.
On January 30, a family member of each man killed on Bloody Sunday will retrace the route followed 50 years earlier. Each person will be a physical reminder, not only of the lives ended that day, but also of the lives imprinted with grief as a result.
Commemorations are forms of communication, conveying values and ideas through events from history. They allow us to gather the shattered parts of a past event and order them into a ritual of remembering. The annual repetition and choreography of iconic events provides a sense of continuity, but with each iteration the meaning changes and adapts.
