North American Debut of Play Based on Scenes
from the Saville Inquiry
CALGARY - The Calgary staging of Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry on March 15-17 and March 20-24, was the North American debut for the play.
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A MURAL from the Bogside in Derry depicts a scene from Bloody Sunday where Father Edward Daly is trying to help 17-year old Jackie Duddy who was the first person shot on that day.
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Based on the Saville Inquiry, the production is a dramatization edited by Richard Norton-Taylor, a journalist with The Manchester Guardian. The play first opened in London in 2005, and subsequently travelled to Derry and Dublin.
Norton Taylor managed to distill four years of evidence relating to Bloody Sunday into two hours of riveting stage performance.
It began in the Bogside in Derry, Northern Ireland on January 30, 1972, when members of the British Parachute Regiment opened fire on a peace civil rights demonstration. Thirteen people, six of whom were minors, died immediately.
A total of 26 people were shot that day and five of those wounded were shot in the back. Many witnesses including bystanders and journalists testify that all those shot were unarmed.
Many details of the day's events are in dispute, with no agreement even on the number of marchers present that day. The organizers claimed that there were 30,000 marchers; in the first tribunal chaired by Lord Widgery, it was claimed that there were only 3,000 to 5,000.
In The Road To Bloody Sunday, local GP Dr. Raymond McClean estimated the crowd as 15,000, which is the figure used by British MP Bernadette Devlin McAliskey in Parliament.
The march's planned route had taken it to the Guildhall, but because of army barricades it was redirected to Free Derry Corner.
A small group of teenagers broke off from the main march and persisted in pushing the barricade and marching on the Guildhall. They attacked the British army barricade with stones and shouted insults at the troops.
At this point, a water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets were used to disperse the rioters. Such confrontations between soldiers and youths were common, though observers reported that the rioting was not intense.
Two people were shot and wounded by soldiers on William Street. At a certain point, reports of an IRA sniper operating in the area were allegedly given to the Army command centre.
The order to fire live rounds was given, and one young man was shot and killed when he ran down Chamberlain Street away from the advancing troops. This first fatality, Jackie Duddy, was among a crowd who were running away.
He was running alongside a priest, Father Edward Daly, when he was shot in the back. The aggression against the British troops escalated, and eventually the order was given to mobilise the troops in an arrest operation, chasing the tail of the main group of marchers to the edge of the field by Free Derry Corner.
In spite of a cease-fire order from the army HQ, over 100 rounds were fired directly into the fleeing crowds by troops under the command of Major Ted Loden. Twelve more were killed, many of them as they attempted to aid the fallen. Fourteen others were wounded, 12 by shots from the soldiers and two knocked down by armoured personnel carriers.
Despite the controversy, all sides agree that Bloody Sunday marked a major negative turning point in the fortunes of Northern Ireland. Over the years the horrific day has been the subject of much debate and remains a controversy, due in part to a tribunal held in the immediate aftermath of the event.
There was widespread outrage at the outcome when the Widgery Tribunal, largely cleared the soldiers and British authorities of blame.
The second inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday was launched at the request of British Prime Minister Tony Blair since the first one was described by many as a "whitewash."
The Saville Inquiry was established in January 1998 to re-examine Bloody Sunday. It is a much more comprehensive study than the Widgery Tribunal, interviewing a wide range of witnesses, including local residents, soldiers, journalists and politicians.
The hearing were concluded in November 2004 and the final report is expected some time later this year.
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