BLOODY SUNDAY: 21 NOVEMBER 1920 - 30 JANUARY 1972

Michael Collins

Bloody Sunday, in Irish Domhnach na Fola, was a day of violence in Dublin on 21 November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. In total, 31 people were killed, including eleven British soldiers and police, sixteen Irish civilians, and three Irish republican prisoners.

The day began with an Irish Republican Army operation, organised by Michael Collins, to assassinate the Cairo Gang, a team of undercover British intelligence agents working and living in Dublin. IRA members went to a number of addresses and shot dead fourteen people: nine British Army officers, a Royal Irish Constabulary officer, two members of the Auxiliary Division, two civilians, and one man, Leonard Wilde, whose exact status is uncertain.

Later that afternoon, members of the Auxiliary Division and RIC opened fire on the crowd at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park, killing fourteen civilians and wounding at least sixty. 

More information: Bloody Sunday, 21 November 1920

That evening, three IRA suspects being held in Dublin Castle were beaten and killed by their captors, who claimed they were trying to escape.

Overall, while its events cost relatively few lives, Bloody Sunday was considered a great victory for the IRA, as Collins's operation severely damaged British intelligence, while the later reprisals did no real damage to the guerrillas but increased support for the IRA at home and abroad.

Bloody Sunday was one of the most significant events to take place during the Irish War of Independence, which followed the declaration of an Irish Republic and its parliament, Dáil Éireann. The army of the new republic, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), waged a guerrilla war against the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), its auxiliary organisations, and the British Army, who were tasked with suppressing the Irish rebellion. Some members of the Gaelic Athletic Association which owned Croke Park were nationalists, but others were not.

Bloody Sunday, sometimes called the Bogside Massacre, was an incident on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. 

British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a peaceful protest march against internment. Fourteen people died: thirteen were killed outright, while the death of another man four months later was attributed to his injuries.

More information: Four Bloody Sundays

Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by rubber bullets or batons, and two were run down by army vehicles. 

The march had been organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and the Northern Resistance Movement. The soldiers involved were members of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment, also known as 1 Para.

Give us the future. We’ve had enough of your past. 

Give us back our country to live in, to grow in, to love.

Michael Collins