Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry by Douglas Murray

Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry Reviews

• 
  Darjeeling

  Wow. I'm gonna go read all his other books.
  
  This must have been a monumental task for the author, yet he has succeeded in writing a book that is hard to stop reading. Having said that, It pulls no punches, and is not for the faint hearted. One must crawl through a great deal of blood and lies in order to get to the truth, and I actually feel rather proud to be British that such a momentous attempt to achieve truth and justice in difficult circumstances was completed. If only something similar could be arranged for Henry Kissinger. Apparently Obama felt he should be given an award instead.
• 
  Colin

  This is an excellent account of the enquiry as well as a retelling - through the mists of time - of the events of that day. I have to respect Douglas Murray's work on this. He's really put in the effort to get to grips with the material and told the story in a way that's gripping and has a few intersting theories up its sleeve.
• 
  Richard K

  Worth 6 stars. Unbelievably eviscerating of the key players on all sides
• 
  Nicholas Whyte

  
  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.
• 
  Eamonn Clarke

  What is the truth? How long does it take to find it? And how much does it cost?
  In the case of the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday the answers to the last two questions would appear to be ten years and about £200 million.
  
  Lord Saville's report runs to ten volumes and few will have read it all. Instead I turned to this book which I listened to through audible. The author begins by considering how memories may have faded or possibly changed in the thirty years between Bloody Sunday and the start of the Saville inquiry. In particular he focuses on a small but gruesome detail concerning the eyelid of one victim which has become incorporated into many people's memories as a form of legend. I was reminded of the first episode of the podcast Serial and the journalist's introduction about how many months she had spent on the almost impossible task of trying to work out what one teenager had been doing during a 45 minute period 15 years previously.
  
  Saville's ten year process managed the momentous task of detailing what happened in ten minutes of shooting that took place one Sunday morning in 1972. His conclusions are powerful and inescapable and this book manages to sum them up expertly.
  
  Understandably this is only a précis of all the evidence that the inquiry heard and for obvious reasons the author does concentrate on some of the more colourful characters who appeared in the witness box: Bernadette Devlin, David Shayler, Edward Heath and Martin McGuinness being the best examples, but this does make for a fascinating listen.
  
  It's a powerful piece of reporting and one that I found totally compelling.
  
• 
  Carla Groom

  Eye-opening from the perspective of Northern Irish history (which I've been fascinated by since school) and also the working of one of the longest inquiries ever to take place in Britain.
  
  Murray has taken the extensive records of the Saville Inquiry and turned them into a readable book which blends the legal, political, psychological and forensic elements of the evidence given. And despite the fact that we all know the horrific way in which that day in 1972 turned out, it still feels like a page-turning detective book. Which in a way, it is.
  
  Having read it, I don't feel like I know what happened that day, but I do have a better idea of the gaps in our knowledge, and the implication of those gaps for what has happened since.
• 
  AttackGirl

  Doug's gruesome details of brains, blood and choppy details I could do without, but people do get what they ask for and it is named Bloody Sunday.
  Doug is calm and articulate, his presentation of "The normalization of savagery" is well researched and enjoyable, as is his youtube talks & lectures. His fearless tackling of those messy topics separating us all under Politically Correct conversations has pushed us further apart and has now brought ruin to Europe as he has discussed in his other book. This book is no less presented under the same straight forward truth.
  
  Great Job Douglas, keep up the good work, we need real heroes not afraid to confront what some are even afraid to speak.
• 
  Karl

  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.
• 
  Lachlan

  This is an excellent and very detailed summary of a very important inquiry, the report for which few are likely to read. It also gives insight into broader issues and attitudes within British and Irish society.
• 
  Alastair Walker

  Superbly researched and gripping to read, an excellent piece of work.
• 
  Jamie

  There are many, perhaps too many that have views and opinions on what happened that day, myself included. To those I can only suggest, strongly suggest that you read this book. The conclusions to tne report are not conclusive as more than several from the civilian and terrorist sides lied and refused to give evidence. Equally, the evidence given by soldiers was contradictory. No one from any side comes out of this blameless.
• 
  Darren Hardesty

  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.
• 
  Neil Kernohan

  It was no easy task to sift through the complexities of Saville's 12 year long enquiry into probably the most notorious incident of the N Ireland troubles and produce such a clear account of the findings. Murray's book is quite fast paced and reads almost like a thriller, though in the case of Bloody Sunday the truth was always going to be stranger than fiction. The book's structure makes it easy to digest, with specific chapters examining the major political players on all sides, the contradictory testimonies of the paratroopers involved, the IRA''s role (Officials and Provos) and the headline grabbing obfuscations of Martin McGuinness (then Acting OC, Derry Provisional IRA).
  
  Even as a native of N Ireland, and steeped in the province's mythologies, I found the revelations about the original Widgery report and the British establishment's dissembling about the slaughter of 14 innocent civilians a sobering read. Equally, Murray provides plenty of narrative on Saville's findings about the Official IRA's activities around Rossville flats that day and the scale of Republican secrecy and control over the Bogside ghettoes.
  
  As a contribution to a better understanding of the treacheries and tragedies of the early N Ireland Troubles the book is a first rate piece of journalism.
  
  
  
• 
  Christine

  
  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.