thecenci's review
5.0
An astonishing book and a difficult topic given that there is blame and suspicion on all sides. However, it's handles the issues well and points out that all parties lied to some extent but the army the most. Fourteen people were murdered and no one has served a day for it. Indeed, the names of the soldiers are still witheld to this day.
sloshydolphin's review
5.0
Amazing book. I did not realise how little i actually knew about this terrible event. The book is incredibly well written it gives actual testimony and does not try and draw conclusions that are not supported.
nwhyte's review
4.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3257365.html
Douglas Murray is a right-wing journalist, and his book partly reflects that perspective; it's a series of snapshots of individuals who gave evidence (or should have) to the Saville enquiry. This is not always successful. The chapters on Edward Heath, Bernadette McAliskey and Martin McGuinness don't really tell us much about them; each stonewalled the enquiry in different ways, and it's quite difficult to tell a story about people not talking. The chapter on the British intelligence source codenamed "Infliction" gets way too mesmerised by the supposed glamour of intelligence-gathering. His chapter on the IRA is mainly gossip which confuses the Officials and Provisionals, though there is one amusing detail, that a leading Official IRA member, who Saville would have liked to hear from, was actually selling cigarette lighters at a stall outside the Guildhall until he died in 2003.
But there are three very good chapters here, and they are all about the soldiers who carried out the shooting on Bloody Sunday. One tantalising suggestion is that Soldier G, who is known to be now dead and was Soldier F's partner in murder on the day, ended up as one of the mercenaries killed with Costas Georgiou, "Colonel Callan", in Angola in 1976. Murray hints that Soldier G may actually have been Georgiou himself, though I think it's a bit too good to be true.
There is a brutal chapter on Colonel Derek Wilford, whose blind defence of his men in the teeth of the evidence is remarkable. Some extracts are given from Wilford's ill-advised media interviews, including this jewel of an exchange with Jim Naughtie on the Today Programme (back in 1999 when it was still worth listening to):
DW: I have to ask: what about Bloody Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and every day of the week? What about Bloody Omagh, what about Bloody Warrenpoint, Enniskillen, Hyde Park, Bloody Aldershot and Brighton? Bloody everything the IRA ever touch?
JN: Colonel Wilford, I think you would find it hard to argue that the IRA had had a good press in Britain.
[...]
[Michael McKinney, whose brother was killed on Bloody Sunday, is brought into the conversation]
DW: He may represent his dead brother and a very, very tragic situation it is, but I do not accept that he merely represents him. He represents the Republican organisation and we are naive to the point of idiocy to believe otherwise.
JN: Well, can I, Colonel Wilford, I must interrupt you there because Mr McKinney, as you know, is sitting across from me…
DW: No, I didn’t know he was sitting across from you.
JN: Well, he is, I did say he was in the studio. He was shaking his head rather vigorously and I must ask him just on this question. Colonel Wilford has said that you represent a particular strain of Republicanism. Now I just want to put that to you because you’re still here.
MM: Well, that’s totally untrue. I’ve been involved in the Bloody Sunday issue, the Bloody Sunday campaign these past seven years. I’m one of the founder members of that, myself and a number of other relatives are involved in that and we have no links with any Republican organisation at all.
JN: Right. Colonel Wilford, I mean, that’s been said, do you accept it?
DW: No, of course I don’t accept it.
JN: Why not?
DW: Well, because they will all say that, won’t they.
But Murray's book begins and ends with two brutal chapters on Soldier F, who together with the late Soldier G killed between five and seven of those who died on Bloody Sunday. The first chapter graphically describes F's murder of Bernard McGuigan, the last person to be killed on Bloody Sunday, and reflects on how memories of such a horrific event can cheat (there is a very gruesome detail involving a detached body part which I won't describe further). In the second last chapter, Murray looks at how Soldier F's story that he had fired only at rioters who were attacking him fell apart within hours of Bloody Sunday, and recounts how the inquiry got through his defences and forced him to admit at least some responsibility. Murray doesn't quote it, but this is the crucial dialogue:
Q. Before your evidence concludes, I think I ought to summarise for you the accusations and allegations that have been raised and which the Tribunal will have to consider and determine.
The allegations are, firstly, that you killed up to four people, possibly even more. Firstly Michael Kelly, and we know, do we not, that you killed him because of the forensic evidence that a bullet from your gun was found in his body?
A. That is correct.
Q. Secondly, you have accepted, in answering questions from Mr Mansfield behind me, that you shot Barry McGuigan, whose photograph, in a pool of blood, you have seen; do you remember that?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you also accept that you shot Patrick Doherty on whose behalf you were asked questions this afternoon by Ms McDermott?
A. Yes.
Q. As I have put to you, there is evidence that might lead to the conclusion that you shot William McKinney in Glenfada Park; do you follow?
A. Yes.
Q. What is alleged in relation to each of those four people is that you shot them without justification, that is to say, that you murdered them; do you follow?
A. I follow, it is not correct, but I follow, yes.
Q. And you say that it is not correct, because?
A. Because, as I refer to my statements, the people I shot were either petrol bombers or a person who had a weapon.
Q. I also put to you that you may have wounded Joe Mahon, the boy whose body is on the ground behind William McKinney's in Glenfada Park. The suggestion is also that you may have wounded the two others who were wounded below the Rossville Flats; do you follow?
A. Yes.
Q. Is there anything that you can say about that or would wish to say about that?
A. No.
Douglas Murray is a right-wing journalist, and his book partly reflects that perspective; it's a series of snapshots of individuals who gave evidence (or should have) to the Saville enquiry. This is not always successful. The chapters on Edward Heath, Bernadette McAliskey and Martin McGuinness don't really tell us much about them; each stonewalled the enquiry in different ways, and it's quite difficult to tell a story about people not talking. The chapter on the British intelligence source codenamed "Infliction" gets way too mesmerised by the supposed glamour of intelligence-gathering. His chapter on the IRA is mainly gossip which confuses the Officials and Provisionals, though there is one amusing detail, that a leading Official IRA member, who Saville would have liked to hear from, was actually selling cigarette lighters at a stall outside the Guildhall until he died in 2003.
But there are three very good chapters here, and they are all about the soldiers who carried out the shooting on Bloody Sunday. One tantalising suggestion is that Soldier G, who is known to be now dead and was Soldier F's partner in murder on the day, ended up as one of the mercenaries killed with Costas Georgiou, "Colonel Callan", in Angola in 1976. Murray hints that Soldier G may actually have been Georgiou himself, though I think it's a bit too good to be true.
There is a brutal chapter on Colonel Derek Wilford, whose blind defence of his men in the teeth of the evidence is remarkable. Some extracts are given from Wilford's ill-advised media interviews, including this jewel of an exchange with Jim Naughtie on the Today Programme (back in 1999 when it was still worth listening to):
DW: I have to ask: what about Bloody Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and every day of the week? What about Bloody Omagh, what about Bloody Warrenpoint, Enniskillen, Hyde Park, Bloody Aldershot and Brighton? Bloody everything the IRA ever touch?
JN: Colonel Wilford, I think you would find it hard to argue that the IRA had had a good press in Britain.
[...]
[Michael McKinney, whose brother was killed on Bloody Sunday, is brought into the conversation]
DW: He may represent his dead brother and a very, very tragic situation it is, but I do not accept that he merely represents him. He represents the Republican organisation and we are naive to the point of idiocy to believe otherwise.
JN: Well, can I, Colonel Wilford, I must interrupt you there because Mr McKinney, as you know, is sitting across from me…
DW: No, I didn’t know he was sitting across from you.
JN: Well, he is, I did say he was in the studio. He was shaking his head rather vigorously and I must ask him just on this question. Colonel Wilford has said that you represent a particular strain of Republicanism. Now I just want to put that to you because you’re still here.
MM: Well, that’s totally untrue. I’ve been involved in the Bloody Sunday issue, the Bloody Sunday campaign these past seven years. I’m one of the founder members of that, myself and a number of other relatives are involved in that and we have no links with any Republican organisation at all.
JN: Right. Colonel Wilford, I mean, that’s been said, do you accept it?
DW: No, of course I don’t accept it.
JN: Why not?
DW: Well, because they will all say that, won’t they.
But Murray's book begins and ends with two brutal chapters on Soldier F, who together with the late Soldier G killed between five and seven of those who died on Bloody Sunday. The first chapter graphically describes F's murder of Bernard McGuigan, the last person to be killed on Bloody Sunday, and reflects on how memories of such a horrific event can cheat (there is a very gruesome detail involving a detached body part which I won't describe further). In the second last chapter, Murray looks at how Soldier F's story that he had fired only at rioters who were attacking him fell apart within hours of Bloody Sunday, and recounts how the inquiry got through his defences and forced him to admit at least some responsibility. Murray doesn't quote it, but this is the crucial dialogue:
Q. Before your evidence concludes, I think I ought to summarise for you the accusations and allegations that have been raised and which the Tribunal will have to consider and determine.
The allegations are, firstly, that you killed up to four people, possibly even more. Firstly Michael Kelly, and we know, do we not, that you killed him because of the forensic evidence that a bullet from your gun was found in his body?
A. That is correct.
Q. Secondly, you have accepted, in answering questions from Mr Mansfield behind me, that you shot Barry McGuigan, whose photograph, in a pool of blood, you have seen; do you remember that?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you also accept that you shot Patrick Doherty on whose behalf you were asked questions this afternoon by Ms McDermott?
A. Yes.
Q. As I have put to you, there is evidence that might lead to the conclusion that you shot William McKinney in Glenfada Park; do you follow?
A. Yes.
Q. What is alleged in relation to each of those four people is that you shot them without justification, that is to say, that you murdered them; do you follow?
A. I follow, it is not correct, but I follow, yes.
Q. And you say that it is not correct, because?
A. Because, as I refer to my statements, the people I shot were either petrol bombers or a person who had a weapon.
Q. I also put to you that you may have wounded Joe Mahon, the boy whose body is on the ground behind William McKinney's in Glenfada Park. The suggestion is also that you may have wounded the two others who were wounded below the Rossville Flats; do you follow?
A. Yes.
Q. Is there anything that you can say about that or would wish to say about that?
A. No.
kikiandarrowsfishshelf's review
3.0
I think I first heard about the Troubles in Northern Ireland on a Saturday morning. This is way back when, and before cartoons the networks would put on shows like Lorne Greene’s New Wildness and Wild Kingdom. It was some type of mandate for educational programming. One channel had a half program that presented plays with social aspects. One play, a very good one, was about a group of people trapped in a pub with a bomb right outside the door. It took place in Northern Ireland.
This was before I heard U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday”.
This book looks at Bloody Sunday though the lens of the Saville Inquiry, which took place years after the event and lasted years. It is a more narrative form of the inquiry; I guess and points to suggests and conclusions. There is a chapter about each of the major witnesses as well as a section dealing with the actual day itself. It also looks at the roles of both sides – more damning naturally to the army, but there are some interesting comments about Derry and Bogside.
It would help to have some familiarity of Bloody Sunday before reading this book.
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