The retired Bishop of Derry has been giving evidence to the Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday. Dr Edward Daly said that he asked British soldiers what had possessed them to open fire on civilians on the day of the civil rights march and the killings that followed. The retired bishop has spent the morning recalling the events surrounding the death of a teenager, Jackie Duddy, who was shot as he ran away from the soldiers through the Bogside.
The image of a young Fr Daly waving a bloodstained handkerchief in front of a group of men carrying the teenager through the Bogside still remains one of the most abiding memories of Bloody Sunday, 29 years on. Mr Duddy died as a result of his wounds and much of the evidence given by Bishop Daly concentrates on the moments leading up to shooting of the 17-year-old. Bishop Daly administered the last rites to the teenager after he fell in the car park of the Rossville flats when British troops opened fire.
Earlier Dr Daly told the Saville Inquiry that he urged his parishioners not to get involved in confrontation on Bloody Sunday. He said that on that day, 30 January 1972, he appealed to his congregation at the end of Mass at the city's St Eugene's Cathedral to go home quietly. Dr Daly helped with the dead and injured after British troops opened fire during a civil rights march, killing 13 people. Another man injured in the shooting died five months later.
Last year Bishop Daly said that giving evidence to the inquiry represented an extremely daunting prospect but he felt a responsibility to those who died or were injured on the day to allow the innocence of those killed on the day to be established.
