NOVANEWS
Truth more important now than ever before
Derry Journal 14/05/10 see also at http://www.troopsoutmovement.com/latestnews.htm
Mickey Bridge was 25-years-old and a march steward on Bloody Sunday. The Bogside had just descended into pandemonium – marchers fleeing advancing troops and running for shelter towards the Rossville Flats and Free Derry Corner – when he was shot by a paratrooper. This week he spoke to JULIEANN CAMPBELL.
Mickey Bridge was shot as he confronted soldiers in the courtyard of the Rossville Flats. He was shocked and indignant at the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Jackie Duddy – someone he had known in boxing circles in the city.
“When I saw young Duddy fall, I went back towards the soldiers, probably shouting obscenities at them, and they shot me, quite deliberately,” he remembers.
“Bloody Sunday was different. Nobody could ever have seen it coming – we had no concept of something like that ever happening.”
The bullet hit Mickey just below the hip and he spent two weeks recovering from his injuries at Altnagelvin Hospital.
“At the time we had no idea how many people were shot and we didn’t know the full extent of what had happened until the next day. It was only when I saw the newspapers that the reality began to hit me.”
Mickey recalls the frustration he felt after the widely criticised Widgery Inquiry into the January 30 killings – an investigation that largely cleared the soldiers and British authorities of any blame.
“I was angry about Widgery, everyone was, but we couldn’t do anything about it. They avoided the wounded like the plague. They ignored witnesses and important evidence. They were aware of police reports and did nothing and they got rid of the survivors as quick as possible.
“The investigating officer at the time said that the shooting of Jackie Duddy was murder. He also said that I was innocent – facts which were never brought to the Widgery Inquiry but were later used during Saville.”
Mickey acknowledges that Bloody Sunday has adversely affected his life.
“Overnight, it changed everything. They tried to justify killing so many people by classing us as terrorists. Because of the environment we were living in, if I strayed into a staunch Protestant area and they found out who I was, I was targeted for being Catholic. It restricted where you could work. That was a reality then.”
Distrust
Mickey says that part of the psyche within the whole community was a distrust of the armed forces.
“Once you were identified, they took it upon themselves to stop you – once I was stopped seven times in one week. I was a name they recognised; they checked my ID and they thought, ‘There’s that nail-bomber from Bloody Sunday’. You had to live with that for years.
It affected your personal life, it affected your life, everything. When I went to England they held us in security for hours. I was labelled. I still haven’t shaken it off.”
Before the British government announced a new Inquiry in 1998, Mickey had avoided the subject of Bloody Sunday.
“I stayed away from it and didn’t address it at all until the new inquiry started. I tried to keep my family distant from it all, too. They never even knew I was shot. A teacher told my daughter at school and that’s how she found out. I didn’t talk about it and wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for the Inquiry.”
Second inquiry
“We were granted a second inquiry for one simple reason – the Public Records Office was being thrown open after 30 years and the British government knew we were going to find something out. Irish Rights Watch and Patricia Coyle, a solicitor for Peter Madden, were made aware of papers within the Public Records Office and the best thing the government could do was address the situation.
The Public Records forced their hand. The British government couldn’t get rid of it, so they addressed it by taking control and establishing an Inquiry, just like they did in 1972.”
Mickey vividly recalls seeing soldiers give evidence at the Saville Inquiry. “The whole stance that the soldiers took was that they didn’t remember much. Instead of saying they shot a person, they shot a target – a nail-bomber or a gunman. Even at the hearings in Westminster, ‘Lieutenant N’ refused to acknowledge that I was the person he shot. I was the only person there – he shot me, that is a fact.
“There is no such thing as a mistake. The soldier who shot me did so from only yards away with clear vision. What they did on Bloody Sunday is exactly what they did after Bloody Sunday – they put themselves into overdrive to cover it up,” he says.
As the world awaits the publication of the new report into Bloody Sunday, Mickey fears Saville may “scatter the blame all over the place.”
“I have no faith in Saville, but they have put him in a position where he has to address the evidence presented to him, as long as it’s factual with proven evidence, and if it isn’t, then we will take him to task. The likelihood of prosecutions is very slim. Saville can only recommend it, he doesn’t have the power to make it happen, and I really don’t think he will recommend prosecution for anybody involved.
“However, what I do say is that Saville must put individual blame on specific soldiers and he has to exonerate every individual victim – that’s the only way this will draw to a conclusion. That’s the only thing that will satisfy me.”
Troops Out Movement ~ Campaigning for British Withdrawal from Ireland
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