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(gentle tinkling music)

(film reel clicking)

- [Priest] Lord Jesus you have given us

the consolation of the truth, Christ have mercy.

- [Congregation] Christ have mercy.

- Lord Jesus you are the good shepherd,

leading us into everlasting life, Lord have mercy.

- [Congregation] Lord have mercy.

- May almighty God have mercy on us,

forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.

We have gathered here dear friends to remember

the loved ones who died on these streets,

around this church in the Ballymurphy massacre.

To highlight once more as you have all done

so faithfully, and with long suffering,

the unspeakable injustice perpetrated

against your family members, your friends,

your neighbors, our parishioners.

Murdered on the 9th August 1971 in cold blood.

(somber music)

- [Male] Go, go, go, go.

(incomprehensible shouting)

(van engine rumbling)

(dramatic tense music)

(somber music)

(plane engine roaring)

- [James] I was a 21 year old soldier

in the Royal Green Jackets in the summer of '69.

We had been ordered back from leave,

we flew from RAF Lyneham in C-130 transports,

and we arrived here at Ballykelly, Northern Ireland.

We had expected to assist the civil authorities

in keeping the peace because of the trouble

that we'd seen on TV in Londonderry,

and we moved off into Belfast in late August 1969.

- I arrived here at Ballykelly Air Base

on a cold march day in 1972.

I was just 18, just finished training

with the Royal Green Jackets.

We were the new boys here, unknown territory.

We didn't know what to expect.

(echoing footsteps)

This is the transport hub of Ballykelly airbase,

this map must have been here for decades.

When we arrived here in Ballykelly,

a couple of days later we went down to Derry,

and later that year we went across here to Belfast.

- What we found was that Belfast was divided

in sectarian terms.

The east of the city was predominantly Protestant,

and the western side of the city,

and the north of the city you had enclaves

of Catholic communities in Ardoyne,

further run in the lower folds,

but one of the main areas where we felt

that there were difficulties was here in Ballymurphy.

- Ballymurphy back in those days was seen

as a Catholic ghetto.

There was a lot of poverty, unemployment,

a lot of people just didn't have anything.

There was nothing for the people,

and basically hadn't much of a chance

of getting a job either because you're a Catholic.

In the shipyard impossible,

the aircraft factory, impossible,

sirocco works, impossible.

And they didn't ask you if you were

a Catholic or a Protestant,

what they asked you was what school did you go too?

And that was enough.

And the way they got out of it then,

was to be saying right you haven't been successful

on the day but we'll keep your name on file,

which quickly went in the bin,

and that's the last you ever heard of it.

- Well the presence of the church here

has been I'm afraid not as good as it could have been.

When I first came to Ballymurphy in the mid 60s

I was horrified, and I couldn't believe my eyes.

I was very angry about the level of poverty

and neglect of people, and yet at the same time

I found that this district had more people

doing more for their own dignity

then any place I had seen in Belfast so far.

- It looked bad Ballymurphy, but to me it was

the best place to be.

(upbeat rock music)

That's me in the gray uniform, my school uniform.

I was like a 13 year old girl at the time,

I love Ballymurphy.

But those were the good times really, before 1971.

- [Briege] This was with happy times.

- We used to come up here me and my friends,

and play knock the doors,

knock the doors and run away.

And then sometimes you went and got a wee chase.

- [Briege] It's good memories.

- [Rita] That's before the troubles really took hold.

- At nine, 10, 11, 12 years of age

I just knew that something wasn't right.

At certain time of the year we had to pretend

to be not either Catholics or from Ballymurphy,

and that was usually the marching season.

Protestant families put their union jacks

and their orange bunting out there,

and for the month of July the kids wouldn't play with us.

And I said, what's the crack here you know,

what's happening?

I was aware that we weren't like every other society,

or like every other community, that's what I was aware of.

(tense music)

- [Narrator] For generations the sectarian

geography of Belfast has ebbed and flowed

along with the politics of division

that have defined this city.

Divisions which were institutionalized in 1921.

When demands for Irish independence became overwhelming,

Britain partitioned the country,

creating a Catholic majority free state

in the south, but it held on to the six counties

in the north east, a new state it called Northern Ireland.

A state designed with a built in Protestant majority,

fiercely loyal to Britain, and deeply distrustful

of the Catholic minority.

- They discriminated against Catholics in terms of jobs

and public housing.

The police and a paramilitary force called the B-Specials

were dominated by Protestants.

In the B-Specials case no Catholics

were allowed to actually join.

- [Narrator] Northern Ireland's electoral boundaries

were drawn to favor Protestants,

and economic qualifications introduced

to disadvantaged Catholics.

Effectively a Catholic vote was worth less

then a Protestant one.

So even Derry, Northern Ireland's second city

always elected a Protestant or Unionist council,

despite having a Catholic majority.

- In the mid 60s, the level of indignation and anger

began to rise, and people demanded their human rights.

♪ We will overcome ♪

What was happening in America particularly

was of tremendous importance to people here.

♪ We shall overcome ♪

Even the music and the songs the people sang in America

and elsewhere, they were taken on here.

One person per vote, that became the cry of the people.

- I lived in Derry from 1966 to 1968,

so I was one of the demonstrators.

It was quite an interesting thing to,

if not exactly be sort of part of,

because I was Protestant who happened to be a student there

but to see the authority and the power,

and the self organization of these ordinary people.

- The people were not looking for a revolution,

they were not looking for a change of government,

they were looking for civil rights and equality

within the British system.

But any initiative by people in an area like ours

was looked upon with suspicion.

- [Male] Would be detrimental to your safety

to continue this march.

- [Male] This march will not be safe.

- Any call for civil rights was really

a subversive plot, then the police were able to attack

civil rights marches and really beat them into the ground.

(screaming)

- [Reporter] Civil rights demonstrators

in a march from Belfast to Londonderry were today attacked

by angry loyalist crowds near Bertolack Bridge.

- They all battered us, and they took the fellas singlet,

and they battered him, and then they came for another fella.

- [Narrator] Many of the attackers were identified

as off duty officers from the Protestant police auxiliaries,

the B-Specials.

- Loyalist opposition to this civil rights movement

was very similar to the way many poor whites reacted

in the United States because they were one step

up the ladder from the Catholics,

just as the poor whites were one step up the ladder

from the black people, and they didn't want to fall down.

(marching drums)

- [Narrator] In August '69 a loyalist parade

marched provocatively along Derry's ancient city walls,

overlooking the poor Catholic Bogside Estate.

But when loyalists marched down towards the Bogside,

serious rioting erupted.

What followed was a three day battle,

in which the police were driven out by Nationalist youth

and the Bogside declared a no-go area

for the security forces.

- So Free Derry was actually born,

and barricades were sort of put up to stop

these forces, whether it was the loyalist mobs,

or the Unionist police forces entering the areas

of the Bogside.

(indistinct chatter on the radio)

- [Narrator] Free Derry's no go area

became at once a potent symbol of resistance

for nationalists and Catholics,

and an insurrectionary threat to the Protestants

and loyalists.

Riots broke out all across Northern Ireland,

and in Belfast the B-Specials and the police, the RUC

went on the offensive.

In their wake, hundreds of people, mostly Catholics

were burnt out of their homes by loyalist mobs.

- The B-Specials led them, and they come onto

radio and television and say that we were shooting.

They machine gunned us.

- [Reporter] Did you shoot back?

- Well what with pea shooters.

- [Narrator] At the time the old IRA had largely committed

to a political program, and most,

though not all of it's weapons were out of use.

- In 1969 the IRA were criticized by their own community

for having been unable to prevent the incursions

where houses had been burned down,

replied with the fact that they simply

didn't have any weapons available.

There was a lot of graffiti in those days

aimed at the official republican movement

with such things as IRA, I ran away.

(somber music)

- When the police were found to be not only not protecting

people but were actually leading mobs into streets

and helping them to burn the houses.

This of course was terribly dangerous for us

who had watched things in Europe happening

during the 30s, in Germany and Spain.

- I remember on the night of the 14th August, 15th August,

I was up in the attic of my grannies house

at the top end of Crumlin Road.

And it seemed as if all of Belfast was burning.

I was 11, 12 years of age, watching the city

in which I lived in seemingly coming apart.

All these streets full of Catholic houses

were all burnt out, and I remember that there was a sense

of fear about the place, what's gonna happen,

what's gonna be next.

(fire crackling)

(sirens wailing)

Many Catholic families came to Ballymurphy

for refuge and for security, and one of the places

that they ended up seeking refuge in this area

was in St Thomas' Secondary School in the Whiterock Road.

- [Briege] Do you remember in '69 Rita,

when they burnt the people out in Bombay street

and the lower falls, and they all came up here

to St Thomas'.

I remember having to come round and help,

they were all lined up here on mattresses.

All different families, women, children, men.

We were a safe haven then, so we were.

- [Narrator] The violence by both sides

was spiraling out of control and the unionist forces

of law and order were compromised and exhausted.

The British government, running out of options

decided to act.

- We were very, very well received by the people.

We were their essentially the protect the Catholic community

Our patrols were being given hot food, soup,

tea, cakes by what was a very,

very appreciative community.

- When they first came in I sort of was a bit fascinated

by all these soldiers.

It was like something you seen in a TV program.

My mommy made them tea and sandwiches,

and I had an older sister who was 18 at the time,

I think she was a wee bit caught up in it all.

She used to go to the dances and that with them,

and then she met a soldier and she went off and married him.

- They brought in the troops in 1969

and people thought the troops were going to protect them.

It took some time to find out that they were gonna do

nothing of the kind.

- [Narrator] In reality the army had not been sent in

to separate the Catholics and the Protestants,

they were sent in because the authorities had lost control.

Had the British government imposed direct rule right away,

made clear to the unionists that the state must be reformed

and the discrimination ended,

history might have been different.

But they did not.

The troops were sent in to restore law and order,

but for Catholics it was the law and order

of an avowedly sectarian Protestant state.

- The British army are just coming back in

to restore the status quo.

It was the status quo that caused the problems

in the first place.

It was the status quo that lead to over

51 years of discrimination.

- It was a very rude awakening we got

when we found that the people who were to protect us

were in fact taking sides against us.

- I was so young at the time, and I look back,

it just seemed to happen without you realizing.

Then all of a sudden they weren't our friends anymore.

- [Narrator] In July 1970 an army weapons search

in the Catholic lower falls area of Belfast

escalated into riots.

Following the IRAs early failure to adequately defend

nationalist communities, and after the arrival

of the British Army, the organization had split,

and a new group called the Provisional IRA was formed,

initially committed to armed defense of their communities.

As troops entered the falls a small group

from the provisionals were joined by the official IRA,

in sporadic gun battles, with nearly 3000 troops

who blanketed the area in CS gas,

firing countless rubber bullets and live rounds.

(people screaming) (guns firing)

- The British Army imposed a curfew,

which went on for 36 hours.

And this was a city in the United Kingdom,

then under military rule.

- [Narrator] The aim was to seize IRA weapons

which they did, but the searches were indiscriminate

and brutal.

Homes were destroyed, and the army subsequently admitted

soldiers had looted Catholic homes.

- That's the British Army, professionals.

Professional looters, professional robbers,

professional thieves.

- [Narrator] Four civilians were killed by the army,

and at least 60 civilians and 18 soldiers injured.

But as young Catholic families trapped in their homes

ran out of milk and bread to feed their children

women in Nationalist areas around Belfast

decided to take direct action to break

the military curfew.

- [Briege] I remember bringing down two pound of sugar

my mommy had give me to carry.

(people shouting)

And then I got down in the Lower Falls,

the army had big barbed wire things across the road.

The women just up and walked in.

- The British army didn't know what hit them.

They knew were coming but they didn't expect so many.

So the army ended up, had to stand back and let us,

and had to let the people come out of their houses,

there was nothing they could do about it

because they couldn't shoot us all,

so they just had to stand back.

- I must have been about 13 at the time.

- I think we were about 13.

- [Narrator] It was a humiliating episode for the army,

but as they increasingly targeted young Catholic men

as IRA suspects women emerged as the first line

of Nationalist community resistance.

The development was not apparently welcomed by the Army.

(typewriter keys clacking)

- [Male] Our inhibitions about women

have reached absurd lengths.

We moreover seem excessively timorous of charges

of striking women.

It is important to take a robust, perhaps even

oriental attitude to this problem,

and to lay into the women of one's area with vigor.

- [Rita] Women would come out with bin lids and whistles,

and banging the bin lids on the ground

when the army come in the area,

to warn people that they were in.

(children chanting)

- These great macho people, Paratroopers,

were finding themselves being mocked in the street.

Morale was going down.

You don't have women, men and children

mocking Paratroopers in the streets

without some kind of retribution.

(people shouting)

- Go on you dirty rotten bastard you.

You cunt!

- There would have been sort of angry clashes,

verbal abuse of one another.

I know my mommy and other women would have

been giving them abuse, and they'd have

been giving abuse back.

- Oh why don't you shut up!

(incomprehensible shouting)

- It basically just went on like that,

so you knew things weren't good.

(water spraying) (women screaming)

- [Narrator] In mid 1970 the Provisional IRA

abandoned purely defensive actions for a bombing campaign

against commercial targets.

And then in February '71 they killed

the first British soldier of the troubles.

In response hard line loyalists demanded

Northern Ireland's Unionist prime minister,

Brian Faulkner take tougher action against the IRA.

Loyalist paramilitaries, known to vastly outnumber the IRA

were looking threatening.

To prop Faulkner up the British government agreed

he could introduce internment.

The power to imprison indefinitely without charge or trial.

- The main target of the present operation

is the Irish Republican Army, which has been responsible

for recent acts of terrorism.

They are the present threat.

I ask those who will quite sincerely consider

the use of internment powers as evil

to answer honestly this question,

is it more of an evil than to allow the perpetrators

of these outrages to remain at liberty?

- [Narrator] The British Army prepared to carry out

Faulkner's orders.

A list of 450 people was supplied by the RUC,

it contained not a single loyalist,

but included many peaceful civil rights activists.

Ballymurphy, seen as a hot bed of Republican activism

was a key target.

(somber music)

- The 9th August was a terrible day, it really was.

I was wakened like everyone else at four in the morning

by the sound of bin lids.

- [Briege] I remember lying in bed,

and I heard my daddy shouting to my mommy, Joan, Joan,

get up, the bin lids are going, there's something wrong.

- The army rolled in to all the Catholic areas,

and raided houses of a list.

People were just dragged from their beds.

- My friend was there saying, could you come with my quick,

my daddy's been arrested.

- They raided my house, I wasn't there,

so they went across the road and they arrested my father.

There was whole families were arrested

and were held in internment.

- They actually had a man chained to the back of a Saracen,

and it was like something you'd see in cowboys and indians,

and trailing the indians behind them.

It was just unbelievable.

(seagulls cawing) (somber music)

- I have lived in Portaferry all my life.

We didn't have much problems down this way at all.

On the 9th August we were to go to Belfast

to visit my brother, Father Hugh Mullan

who was a priest in Ballymurphy at that time.

But my brother phoned up and said,

don't come up today because there's problems here.

He lived in Springfield Park in Ballymurphy.

In front of him there was a bit of waste ground,

and behind was Springmartin, the Protestant estate.

- [Narrator] That evening a large mob of loyalists

on the road in front of the Springmartin estate

began threatening the Catholics living below,

in the horseshoe shaped Springfield Park,

where Father Mullan lived.

- Springfield Park came under attack

from a crowd from Springmartin's loyalists, came down.

They were breaking into their houses,

and wrecking the back of their homes.

- [Narrator] As the loyalist attacks grew

residents of Springfield Park began evacuating

across the wasteland in front of Father Mullan's house.

- A man had been taking children across the field,

Bobby Clarke was his name.

- I took a child across open ground,

what we call Finley's Field.

Someone took the child off me,

and I explained that I was going back to help.

When I ran across the open ground,

and I looked over my right shoulder

I noticed two soldiers on the roof of Springmartin Road,

tracking me with their rifles.

- [Narrator] Dozens of soldiers from the parachute regiment

and the Queens own regiment had been stationed

overlooking Springfield Park.

The army snipers Bobby could see were positioned

in newly constructed flats in Springmartin,

and they had a perfect view over Father Mullan's house,

onto the open ground, across which Bobby Clarke

was now running.

- Something come into my head, zig zag.

And I zig zagged, whether they shot me

because I zig zagged, or whether

it save my life I don't know.

I was knocked down flat, I was hit in the side,

and the bullet went through the bottom at the side,

and actually went across my spine.

- People were shouting that a man had been shot,

and they wanted a priest.

So my brother got something white,

and he went out.

- [Pat] And he started waving it as he went into the field,

this was seen by witnesses.

- Father Mullan came in to me,

and I said father I'm not gonna die,

and he said I'll anoint you anyway.

And he administered the last rites to me.

- [Pat] At that time he was doing that,

my brother Frank had ran out to help.

And Father Mullan was making his way to phone the ambulance.

(gun firing)

- [Bobby] Father Mullan was hit about

10 to 15 yards from me,

and cried out, just crying out in pain.

He died after about 20 minutes.

- He was shot twice, and he lay there,

and he bled to death.

- [Pat] Then they just started firing, firing again,

just firing.

- And the next minute was crack, bang,

and Bobby Clarke says he seen my brother just fall.

- Frank Quinn who was lying beside me,

he just jerked up and a bullet had went through his skull

and he was dead outright before he hit the ground.

- Our Frank was shot once, at the back of the head.

The bullet actually was lodged in his cheek,

still lodged in his cheek.

- Then they fired on everybody, just firing,

and firing everybody, just kept firing constant firing.

(guns firing)

- [Narrator] Earlier that day tension had also been rising

just a few hundred yards away on the Springfield Road.

There members of the 2nd Battalion Parachute Regiment

were based in a commandeered building,

known as the Henry Taggart Hall,

where many of the internees had been taken.

- Throughout the day there were a number

of back and forth protesting.

They were up looking for their sons,

looking for their husbands, brothers.

- [Narrator] As angry youths

continued to attack the barracks

a large crowd of loyalists came down from Springmartin

and the Nationalist rioters ran to confront them.

- Then mommy said, come on you have to go home.

We sort of talking to her, trying to keep her there,

so we wanted to watch, it was like a show to us,

and she said no 'cause the Protestants

would shoot you but the army won't.

But the army fired gas at the rioters,

and obviously we were in the middle.

I couldn't see my mommy, so I said to my friend,

come on quick let's run up here and see what's going on.

So we ran up into Springfield Park,

and we get into it, it was chaos, but it scared me and her.

We said look, come on, maybe we should go home.

- [Narrator] Briege's mother Joan,

unaware her daughter had gone home tried to find her.

- Around the time Father Mullan and Frank Quinn were shot,

my mommy had gone up Springfield Park after me,

she had met her nephew and he'd sent her back.

Saying if I see her I'll send her down to you.

- [Narrator] Joan turned back to an area known

as the Mansfield on the other side of the main road

from the barracks.

There she joined a group of neighbors

standing near a white gable end, watching the riot.

- My daddy was standing with a group of men,

Davey Callaghan, Dan Brien, Danny Teggart.

- My father was having a bit of crack, a bit of slake.

They were there, about four or five of them

was there standing.

All of a sudden the Paratroopers started firing

indiscriminately across the road, anything that moved.

- So this is where it happened on the Springfield Road,

just further down is Springfield Park

where myself and my friend ran away.

On the left where the old folks home is now

was Henry Taggart Barracks.

There was two white pillars at the opening to the Mans.

When the shooting started people all gathered round,

trying to take cover.

- And then maybe three or four of them

tried to run towards Ballymurphy.

- Dan Brien and Wally Ward run across the field,

trying to get to Wally's home.

He almost made it but he was shot in the back,

in the shoulder area.

He fell to the ground and managed to crawl

into his own home.

- My brother Noah Philips was trying to make his way home,

across from Springfield park.

My brother was trying to escape,

trying to get to safety.

The soldiers all shot him.

Then he was lying on the ground screaming.

- He yelled out, I'm a father, turned round.

(gun firing)

And he was shot in the leg, he had twisted

and fell to the ground.

Some of the survivors who were behind the pillars

said that my daddy was lying there,

he was out in the open.

And his body bounced with every bullet went through him.

14 times.

They intentionally shot him again, and again, and again.

- At the same time Noah Phillips is lying on the ground

and he was screaming.

Witness says my mommy walked out, bright summers night,

bright red hair and said son don't be crying,

I'm gonna come and help yah.

Now you remember the last when I told you

earlier on in my story, the last words my mommy said to me,

was the Protestants would shoot you but the army wouldn't,

and I believe my mommy walked out into the middle

of that field thinking, I'm a woman,

they will not shoot me.

(gun firing)

A woman in the house said she heard crying,

and she banged the window and said love,

go up the side of the house I'll let you in the front door.

And mommy said, love I can't move, I can't see,

and then she says when mommy turned her face,

she could see half her face was missing.

My mommy was shot in the face, the shoulder,

the hand, the thigh, and we have witnesses saying,

she lay there and cried.

- My daddy apparently tried to go towards Mrs Connolly,

to help, and then he was shot.

He was shot in the right leg.

(gun firing)

After the people were shot the army

drove across the road and it's one side of the road

to the other.

- [Narrator] Witnesses vary on the detail

but agree that an army vehicle reversed partially

into the Mansfield and that two of three soldiers

got out.

- The army picked up five men, picked up Noel,

Danny Teggart, Davy Callaghan, George Russell,

and they picked up Joe Murphy my daddy.

The five of them were taken in to the barracks

but left Mrs Connolly in the field.

- [Briege] They said they lifted everybody

and left my mommy there because she was already dead.

- [Narrator] Janet's wounded father Joe Murphy

was later taken to hospital where he told his wife

that despite their injuries the survivors

had been beaten by the army.

- My daddy says they were put in to what he called,

a darkened room, and when the army come in,

the army kicked and booted them.

My daddy also told my mommy that while he was in

the Teggart Hall that he was shot into his open wound.

- [Narrator] Several others had also been shot

and wounded on the Mansfield that evening,

one of them was an 11 year old boy

who suffered terrible abdominal injuries

which left him hospitalized for months.

On Finley's Field the injured and the dead

still lay where they'd been shot.

(somber piano music)

- It was 11 o'clock that night on RTE News

that I heard that a priest had been shot in Ballymurphy.

They didn't need to tell me the name of the priest,

I knew who the priest was.

- I heard this banging at the door,

and I could see my father, so I opened the door,

and he was crying, he was distraught.

I said daddy, daddy, what happened, what happened,

what's wrong, what's wrong?

And said to me Frank was shot.

I said daddy was he wounded?

He says, I went and sat on the stairs,

and he said to me, no he's dead.

Now them three words have always stuck in my head.

My poor mommy when she came in, she was terrible,

it was terrible, it was terrible.

She was like a ghost.

- My mother never had a Christmas,

she never ate, my father was the same.

He lost his son.

- [Pat] Was the worst day of my life,

up to that I'd only been a wee lad of 14,

it was the worst day of my life.

- The next morning, my sister who had married

the British soldier realized mommy hadn't come in,

so her and her friend next door,

gone round community centers, and all round the areas

to see if they could find mommy.

I remember by oldest brother said,

go to the phone and ask is there anyone

with red hair been admitted to the hospital.

My daddy come back, basically very shaken

and he said, they said there's only one woman with red hair

and she's in the morgue.

And it took three attempts for him to go in

before he could identify here because her injuries

were horrendous.

And I had to look at my family crying for their mommy,

my young sister, three years of age,

crying for her mommy, and I'm sitting there going,

why did I run, why did I run away?

Why was I so nosey?

- On the 10th August we're getting told

that our priest was dead, Mrs Connolly was dead.

At 14 I just stood and listened to the adults

because they were in despair.

- Daddy called us in and said that we had to go away

because it was too serious, there was too much trouble.

The Republic of Ireland had opened up their army camps

for refugees to come down there.

So buses were leaving from our community center,

we had a youth leader, Pat Mcarthy organizing

these buses to come and collect women and children,

to get them out of the area because there was chaos.

- [Narrator] Around 7000 refugees left Belfast

for the Republic that year.

- We're from Belfast, Springfield area,

and my husband just thought it would be safer

for us to come here.

And our priest has just been shot dead.

- They brought us down to Waterford,

at the bottom of Ireland.

The next time we actually heard anything was

me and my sister were sitting on a big long bench,

we're watching the TV and it was the last news of the night

came on, it just said Joan Connolly,

mother of eight was buried today.

And it was like all of a sudden,

reality suddenly dawned on us,

what was actually had happened.

And the two of us got ourselves in a terrible state.

(somber piano music)

- [Narrator] In Ballymuprhy those left behind,

fearing further incursions by loyalists or the army

prepared their defenses.

- On the second day of the massacre the mood in the area

was very, very tense.

The only thing that a lot of people could do,

was just put up barricades to prevent something similar

to happen.

- The barricades were protection not only against

marauding gangs, but against the troops themselves.

- [Narrator] The barricades were seen as a direct challenge

by the British Army in Belfast,

and in particular by the commander

of the Belfast Operation, Brigadier Frank Kitson.

- This is him, Frank Kitson, around about the time

when he first became Brigadier Kitson in Northern Ireland.

I worked personally as his clerk while based

with the United Nations forces in Cyprus

some years earlier.

A very serious guy, demanding,

someone you wouldn't cross.

- [Narrator] Like most senior British army officers

deployed in Northern Ireland, Frank Kitson

had learned his trade suppressing anti-colonial

insurgencies in the dying days of the empire.

- Brigadier Frank Kitson was the brains behind

army policy and army attitude on the ground,

and everywhere else.

- This book, "Low Intensity Operations",

was written by Kitson from his experiences

based in Kenya and in Malaya during the 1950s.

Which became the defacto doctrine for the conduct

of the Northern Ireland campaign in those early years.

- In order to put an insurgency campaign down,

one must use a mix of measures not just military measures,

and it is sometimes necessary to do unpleasant things

which lose certain amount of allegiance

for a moment in order to produce your overall result.

- [Narrator] For Kitson and the British Army in Belfast

barricades were a symbol of failure.

On day two Paratroopers, supported by Royal Engineers,

moved in on the barricades of Ballymurphy.

- I reference my request for hawkeye

to view these barricades.

- [Narrator] That afternoon Eddie Doherty,

a 31 year old father of four was walking down

the Whiterock Road towards one of those barricades.

- Eddie was my brother, and him and I were very close.

He was just the life and soul of our party, of our house.

Eddie come up to check on my father and us

to see if we were all right 'cause he had heard

it was very bad up in this area.

There was a barricade just at the top of that hill,

as you come up the Whiterock there.

See the silver gate, well there was a barricade there.

He actually walked down the Whiterock Road here,

on the graveyard side.

He crossed over here to talk to a man called Billy Waylan,

whom he knew.

My Waylan told me that Eddie was standing

having a conversation with him when the next thing

he fell at his feet.

(gun firing)

- At around 1700 hours on the 10th August 1971

Edward Doherty was shot and fatally injured

by a bullet fired from a soldier on the Whiterock Road.

At this time the soldiers were removing a barricade

with a mechanical shovel.

The soldier claimed he shot Mr Doherty

whom he alleged was throwing a petrol bomb.

- He was shot in the right hand side of his back,

and the bullet ricocheted round his body,

and come out his breast.

- There are clear contradictions and two different accounts

given by the soldier.

In his initial statement to the Royal Military Police

he refers to emptying this cartridge of bullets.

He made a second statement a matter of months later

where he describes one well aimed shot.

- The soldier said that daddy was a petrol bomber,

but when the forensic got to his body

they told my father that his body was clean,

there was no residue or anything,

either from a gun or from petrol bombs.

And when you start to talk about it again

you get a bit angry and hurt,

that somebody's life should have been

just taken away from them.

He was a very handsome man, and,

he just was one of the best.

And he idolized his children, idolized them children.

His wee girl, when he was putting her to bed at night,

he'd have sang to her "Scarlet Ribbons".

(crying)

You know, I know it's 47 years ago,

but he was ours and it's like yesterday.

God works in mysterious ways.

- [Male] See where the cross is down there?

There was a bloke shot dead there for nothing.

- The British Army came in and murdered my brother,

who was an innocent man and they didn't realize

the devastation they left behind.

- [Narrator] The devastation was far from over.

Brigadier Kitson was about to dispatch

his shock troops to Ballymurphy.

The 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment.

(tense music)

(engine roaring)

- One Para had a particular reputation

in this community here.

They were prepared to do whatever they had to do

to get the job done.

They were referred to as Kitson's own private army.

- If Kitson want's anything doing,

he's put the Paras in 'cause they were his boys.

They were the ones who were the rough,

who were tough, nobody liked them.

We couldn't stand them, and they called us crap hats anyway.

(glass breaking)

But we had to be as good as them.

They would search houses and be hostile with people,

then we would be exactly the same.

- [Narrator] And as Nationalist communities

like Ballymurphy put up barricades

to keep the army and the loyalists out,

so One Para were dispatched to demolish them

and disperse the crowds.

(indistinct shouting) (tense music)

- On the 11th August the soldiers, the Paratroopers

came from this mountain.

They come down the hill, and got into position.

It was the early hours of the morning.

My brother John was in bed, my younger brother woke him.

So him and Terry got dressed, and went out.

- The bin lids started going so my sister Teresa

went up and said to my mommy

that there was something happening.

People thought it was loyalists coming over the mountain

to attack the homes in Ballymurphy.

That's when they seen the soldiers.

(bin lids rattling)

(guns clicking)

(guns firing)

They actually heard the shooting,

that's when everybody turned and started running.

There was chaos,

and people scattered.

They run for their lives.

Joe, my brother and my daddy was separated.

Joe actually jumped over somebody

that was lying in the middle of the road.

We now know that that was my daddy

that our Joe jumped over.

(gun firing)

- My brother was shot twice.

The second bullet went into this thigh, his right thigh

and traveled up and damaged every vital organ

in his 20 year old body.

- So this is where we believe the area

in which my daddy was shot.

My daddy was shot in the middle of the road there,

in the back where he was either trailed,

or believed to have crawled up that pathway.

The soldiers was able to actually follow

the trail of blood down into this garden.

- I was only 16 when we opened the front door

Mr Corr was at the front gate, who was shot.

My brother was rushing out to try and get him,

but Mr Corr said no, I'm shot bad,

and I'm gonna die anyway.

So don't be getting shot coming to get me.

He says, get away into the house out of the road

of the shooting.

So we actually did close the door

and run up the stairs.

That's when the door was booted in,

and the soldiers run up the stairs.

They grabbed me and my brother, trailed us down the stairs,

forcefully and brought us out, and they beat us.

One Paratrooper put his rifle down

behind my brothers ear and they said to him

if he was shot he was dead also.

- [Narrator] The Doyle brothers were taken away,

and the medical orderly from One Para

dragged the injured Joe Corr from their garden

back up the walkway towards the body of John Laverty.

- [Orderly] This male was complaining of pain

in his right side, I looked at this area

and saw that the contents of the abdomen

were emerging from a hole in the abdominal wall.

- [Narrator] Several days after being shot

Eileen's father Joe Corr was transferred

from the Musgrave Military Hospital,

where he'd first been taken to Belfast's Royal Victoria.

He died there 16 days after his shooting.

600 Paratroopers descended on Ballymurphy that day.

- Dirty bastards!

- [Narrator] Witnesses describe rage, assaults

and indiscriminate firing of rubber bullets

and live ammunition.

- It was getting out to pull the window closed,

the next thing I don't know what hit me, a bullet hit me,

in the face, right in the head.

- These soldiers came in shooting at people for nothing.

If they'd only give us a chance of explaining

what's it about, they just come in shooting

with their guns, and there you can see it

for yourself what they're going to the innocent people

who've got nothing to do with this at all.

- [Narrator] That afternoon Ballymurphy youth worker,

Paddy McCarthy loaded up a cart with milk and bread

for local children trapped in their homes

by the violence.

- He made his way down this street here,

and he's calling out bread and milk for babies and children.

And as he got here, he was confronted

by a patrol of Paratroopers.

- The Paratroopers were giving him a hard time,

and they were pointing rifles at him.

He says well, if you're gonna shoot me

you'll shoot me face on, and he backed away

from the Paratroopers.

(gun firing)

Eye witness statements says one of the soldiers

fired over his head.

- As a result of that shot being fired

Paddy died of a heart attack.

Whilst Paddy did not die from gunshot wounds,

Paddy McCarthy's undoubtedly a victim

of the Ballymurphy massacre.

- [Narrator] A few hundred yards from the community center

another local worker was leaving Corpus Christi Church.

- My father Joe McKerr served in the British army

and he lost his hand in the Second World War

fighting for his country.

And when he came back from that,

he started up working as a joiner,

and then there's the Corpus Christi Church here,

he was working that day.

So when my father come walking round here,

that's when he was shot in the head.

He was shot on the right hand side,

and that when my father fell here and he died

nine days later.

- [Narrator] Some witnesses say John was shot

by soldiers on patrol nearby,

others say he was shot from a local timber yard

where British Army snipers were regularly stationed.

- A joiner who's at present doing odds and ends

up in a church, walked round the corner,

and the sniper got him in the timber yard of JP Parry's.

- We're dying up here, we're getting murdered up here,

murdered.

- [Narrator] The raids and searches continued all day,

several people were shot and injured.

- The door was busted in, and they made me stand in front

of them and they says, we get shot, you get shot.

- [Reporter] They used you as a shield you're saying?

- Used me as a shield.

- [Narrator] More then 50 men were arrested

and taken to Girdwood Barracks.

Among them John Laverty's brother Terry

and 16 year old Robert Doyle.

- There was two lines of Paratroopers and police

with batons and you had to run a gauntlet through them,

and you were beat.

(indistinguishable shouting)

- Any chance they got to beat yah they did.

It wasn't till we come home that I had found out

that Mr Corr who was at the front step here.

It wasn't till then that I found out the Paras

had cleaned all the blood away.

I'm sorry.

I've never spoke about this before, since I was 16.

So it's actually bringing it all back.

I mean it was just so horrific,

and a horrific thing at that age to go through.

Horrific times.

- [Narrator] As many as 40 people had been shot,

11 of who had lay dead or dying as the final day

of the Ballymurphy killings came to an end.

But as Ballymurphy grieved the British Army's PR machine

went to work.

That same evening the local paper covered the story.

- [Male] Two gunmen were shot dead,

another seriously wounded in a two hour gun battle

with troops in Ballymurphy early this morning.

The Parachute captain said his men fought

a two-hour gun battle with as many as 20 gunmen

who were using Thompson sub-machine guns,

pistols and rifles.

We killed two of them and recovered the bodies he said.

- My daddy wasn't an IRA gunman,

that captain fed the media with that.

So people believed what they read in papers,

and his workmates believed what they read in the paper

and they sent my mommy hate mail.

If there had have been a police investigation

they would have knew my daddy wasn't an IRA gunman.

Because all the evidence was there.

- [Narrator] The civilian police, the RUC

conducted virtually no serious inquiries into the deaths,

accepting the militaries version of events.

And that version was a product of institutional procedures

which some soldiers argue was open to abuse.

- You carry the yellow card, and that was the rules

and regulations for opening fire, powers of arrest.

If somebody had a gun, or you believed somebody had a gun

and was about to do harm with it

you could legally open fire.

(gun firing)

- The result of that meant that it basically became

the norm for a soldier to respond to every,

any and every situation where they opened fire,

and even after 40 odd years I can still remember

without looking at it that I saw what appeared

to be a gunman holding what appeared to be a firearm

which I believed was about to be used against

another soldier, or a person whom it was my duty to protect

and I opened fire and shot at him.

By saying that regardless of what the reality was,

the soldier would always be covered

because he was acting within the instruction

contained in the yellow card.

(guns firing) (people shouting)

- [Narrator] A year after internment was introduced

one military commander described the yellow card

in these terms.

- [Male] The yellow card is the umbrella to justify

your actions afterwards.

- The more that the information passes through the system,

up each level the more convinced the person passing

the information on is that that is the truth.

These are the reports that go from brigade and from HQ

Northern Ireland to the information policing unit,

to the PR unit, and then subsequent come back out again

in the public domain in the newspaper.

And it's not only that this is presented as the truth,

they believe it's the truth.

(somber music)

- Everything changed, everybody's life changed.

My daddy wasn't there, I took on the responsibility

looking after my brothers and sisters,

and helping my mommy and things like that.

It was very, very hard and it's all very hard.

(crying)

But I just had to continue on as I say,

and you didn't have time for grieving.

And it was only after my mother died

that everything hit me, it was terrible.

It really was like, I have to say.

- [Narrator] Two years after the death of their father,

John and Alice's family suffered another terrible tragedy.

Their 15 year old brother was abducted by the IRA

and accused of being an informer.

- Bernard had learning difficulties,

he was interrogated, they put a placard round his neck

and Bernard was murdered, he was shot in the head

and left for dead.

- When you look what the Paratroopers done to my daddy

the IRA done the same with my brother.

- [Narrator] In 2009 the IRA apologized to the family

for his murder, declaring him innocent of all charges,

and expressing profound regret for his death.

But in the mid '70s Bernard's brutal murder

reinforced the isolation, fear and trauma

of those left behind.

- My mother went from a very hard working woman

to this wee wizened woman we didn't know anymore.

Days we couldn't find her and we searched and searched,

and she'd be sitting at the grave, washing the grave down.

My mommy died seven years after Eddie, just deteriorated.

Eddie's wife Mary died nine years after Eddie,

and the children were left with no mother or no father,

they had very hard times them kids,

very, very hard times.

- When my daddy was shot I was eight.

My daddy had spent two weeks in hospital,

13 days until the 22nd August.

It was my twin brothers birthday,

and I remember they walked over to the settee

and they sat down, it was just suddenly in slow motion.

And they sat down, lifted their birthday cards

and threw the birthday cards in the fire.

I think it was then I realized my daddy was dead.

- [Narrator] Joe Murphy died of septicemia

after suffering kidney failure

and the amputation of his leg as a consequence

of his injuries.

- Next thing I remember was the day of the funeral.

We were starting in the garden,

and I remember me and my two sisters,

we had these wee black dresses on,

with wee white daisies, they were a new dress

we'd got for the funeral.

And the army come down the street

and they stopped outside the house.

And they started singing, the song they were singing was,

where's your pappa gone?

Chirpy, chirpy cheep cheep, something like that.

It was a song that was number one in the charts.

I remember by cousin, she was wanting to lift a bottle

to throw at the Brits, and I remember people holding her.

After the Brits drove off we were taken,

all the younger kids were taken out the house,

and weren't allowed to go to the funeral.

That was in case there was any trouble,

mommy wouldn't let us go so we didn't go to the funeral.

(crying)

- I remember coming home, the house seemed so strange,

it suddenly dawned on you, where was my mommy.

Daddy was in a real bad way, he just couldn't cope.

He just lay in bed, drunk, crying for his wife.

- [Narrator] For decades the families

were left to grieve alone, fearful and silenced.

- I thought if I told anybody, a Protestant,

that my mommy was murdered and she was innocent,

she was out looking for me that they would say,

aye, she's only saying that,

her mommy must have been a gun woman.

Because they put statements out.

So when I went into work, and it was a mixed workplace,

I would have just said oh my mommy was

killed in a car accident.

- Years later there was an event happening in Belfast,

it was called the Forgotten Victims Event.

- The hall was packed, and after the speaker spoke

they said if anybody wants to say anything, can stand up.

- People in the audience was asked

if they had a loved one killed,

and a man stood up and spoke about his brother being shot.

He was shot on the 9th August 1971,

his name was Frank Quinn.

- I wasn't for saying anything, we never spoke,

we just listened, but next thing my brother stood up

and he said well my mommy Joan Connolly

was murdered on the 9th August 1971.

Next thing Janet Donnolly stood up.

- And I says my daddy was shot on the 9th August 1971.

We're all looking at one another, thinking,

what's going on here.

So when it was over, those of us who spoke

all came together.

- [Janet] It was then I met Brige, and her brother Pat.

Liam Quinn, Alice Taggert.

- Janet come over to us and says look,

I've been trying to find out what's happening,

would you's be interested in sort of us getting together?

And we said yes.

- We had never met, but we were all

trying to do the same thing.

So we exchanged phone numbers and that was it.

- [Narrator] Although inquests were held into the deaths

in 1972 they were little more the formalities

and recorded open verdicts.

- This is the Greater Ballymurphy area.

This is where the Finley's field off Sprinfield Park,

this is where Father Hugh and Frank were shot dead,

and Bobby Clarke was wounded,

and other people was wounded as well.

- So then you come down Springfield Park here to the Mans.

- The Mans there, and the Mans here is where

my mommy was killed and this is the house,

where your daddy.

- Gable end yeah.

- We went to the areas where they were murdered,

and we asked people did you live here?

Could you tell us did you remember what you seen?

- That must have changed there.

- People stood at their doors crying, tell us,

distraught, nobody ever asked them before.

- [Narrator] The families have now collected statements

from over 130 witnesses to the events of those three days.

- This was the area where my brother fell to the ground,

it was around about this area here.

He fell to the ground, he was injured,

but as far as we believe there was an Army sergeant

holed up on the Springfield Road,

a few soldiers got out.

As far as me and my family are concerned

we believe that my brother Noel was just,

just shot dead but we later found out

the first time he was shot wasn't fatal.

He was laying on the ground, injured, screaming,

he was no danger to anyone but subsequently afterwards

witnesses were hiding in the field not far away.

- [Narrator] Years later one of those witnesses,

who was just 11 at the time, described what he saw.

- [Male] He kept crying as he was in so much pain.

One of the soldiers had a sidearm gun

and he pulled it out and said, fuck up your cunt,

and then shot him dead.

- There was a postmortem report,

that really enlightened us.

- [Narrator] Most families had never seen the autopsies

of their loved ones before.

Noel's autopsy described two bullet wounds

in the back of his head.

- [Male] One of the bullets had entered the left side

of the neck, below and behind the ear.

Another bullet had entered the right side of the neck.

- [Narrator] A 9mm bullet was recovered,

consistent with the claims Noel was shot with a pistol

or sidearm.

- Someone's gone close to him and shot him twice,

(gun firing) behind each ear.

(gun firing)

The only conclusion I come too is it was an execution,

which I'm sure the British Army will deny.

- Joan Connolly was shot in the face

and in the right thigh,

and she also had some other injuries

which were less serious.

Significantly, Joan Connolly was left in the Mans,

in that field from nine PM to shortly after 3:15 AM.

We commissioned an emergency consultant expert

to re-examine the evidence relating to Joan Connolly.

- He brought a statement out which nearly killed us,

to say that yes my mommy was shot,

but not one of her wounds were fatal.

If she had of got first aid in the field even

she might have survived.

My mommy bled to death.

Are they soldiers statements?

- [Narrator] The families began re-examining

soldiers statements which were formally submitted

to the original inquests in 1972.

They remain the only official record of what happened,

and they identify where the soldiers were located

on the first day of the shootings.

- There's Paratroopers in the top of the flats here,

they were newly constructed.

There's Paratroopers in the Vere Foster school,

and Henry Taggart Barracks.

- [Narrator] Almost all the shots that killed the victims

in day one of internment came from those three locations.

But in their statements the soldiers,

identified only by code letters claim they

were subjected to sustained enemy gunfire.

- This is a statement here from a soldier F,

I would estimate that during the short time

that I was there, some 200 rounds were fired at us.

- This one here, Soldier I, he's saying 400 to 500 rounds

were directed at my location.

- Total of between five and 600 rounds were fired on us.

- Soldier B, total of 700 rounds were fired at our positions

- [Narrator] The soldiers describe a major battle

which they suggest justifies the killings.

But then in one statement a revealing observation.

- See this guy here, he says, I saw gunmen firing

rifles from upstairs room of a house in Springmartin.

Well we know the soldiers came to the Springmartin.

- They're in Springmartin.

- [Narrator] Several soldiers describe firing

at a target in the Moyard flats,

positioned directly between the troops in Springmartin

and those in Vere Foster School.

- Soldier C ordered three men on the school roof

to engage with the gunmen in number 21 Moyard Park.

- R is over here, so he is firing as well

over in the east flats.

- And they're firing into them.

- And they're firing into them.

I think it's Solider T statement is very interesting,

he's firing across the field where Frank

and Father Mullan is, right across over at these houses

in direct line of Vere Foster School.

- So they're firing at one another then.

- That's what it looks like.

- It does look like it doesn't it.

- At the same time all them bullets were shot,

there was no gunmen found in that area,

and there was no guns recovered.

- No guns recovered, no ammunition recovered.

- No weapon shells even. - Nothing.

They used all them bullets just shooting at one another.

- They had too.

- This is just summing up what you've just said there.

Soldier D, he's in Springmartin

and he says because of the danger of our shots

striking the Vere Foster School I ordered all firing

to cease.

- So he had a fair idea.

- He had a fair idea they were shooting at each other.

- What was happening.

(gun firing)

- As soon as you hear the firing you get a crack and a thump

and the crack is actually the shot

that's going over your head,

'cause it's breaking the speed of sound.

The thump which follows is actually the sound

of the rifle being fired, it's a high velocity shot.

In Ballymurphy with a high rise block of flats

there at the time and you have a dip.

The echo would surround off the building.

(gun firing)

It would be very, very difficult to find out

where exactly that shot come from.

It would be very easy for a soldier to fire

and a soldier in another regiment to believe

he's being fired at, and then he would return fire.

And that's how you end up with a gun battle,

of two troops firing at each other,

when there's no IRA there.

- [Narrator] If the relative suspicions are correct

then the sustained exchange of gunfire

would suggest a serious lack of command and control.

But that does not explain the apparently targeted shooting,

several times in some instances of those who died.

- Three soldiers are taking responsibility

for shooting her.

One said, she was shooting at him with a hand gun

and he shot her, and she fell back,

and got up and carried on shooting.

Another soldier said she was going through the grass,

firing at him and he shot her.

Another one said she was sitting in the middle of the field

with a machine gun firing at him.

Come on, this was a granny at 44 years of age,

she was no Annie Oakley.

- I know my daddy was innocent,

but the official version is that the army

had wiped out a hardcore IRA unit.

Where's the evidence?

- [Interviewer] But the army do say

there were a large number of IRA gunmen in the area,

were there any IRA people firing?

- Well when we went out years later

and trying to find out, to find witnesses,

to find out what actually happened

I remember we were in Moyard and we were talking

to a couple of women in Moyard,

and we'd asked that question.

Was there IRA men out on the 9th August?

The women went, IRA men?

Some of them showed up the following day,

we chased them out of the estate.

We asked them where they were last night,

when our people were being murdered by the army,

there was no IRA men here protecting us.

- [Narrator] No one can say for certain

if any paramilitaries were present,

the Loyalist UVF did recently claim

it had a gunman in the area shooting at Catholics,

but the IRA said they had been tipped off

about internment and most of their members

had evacuated.

The families believe there is no convincing evidence

to support the armies claim they faced large numbers

of IRA gunmen.

- Kitson went into Ballymurphy, I believe,

to give a lesson to the people of Ballymurphy.

Saturate it with troops to show who's boss,

to teach them a lesson, you don't mess.

This is what you'll get every time.

- I believe the soldiers knew who they were shooting

because they'd threatened her loads of times.

In fact actually, a couple of weeks before that

we were playing at the door, and mommy was

brushing the path and the soldiers drove past

and they were shouting abuse at her,

she was shouting back at them.

And the soldier shouted there's a bullet in here,

and it's for you.

- Part of the building of fear of a community in training,

was all about being aware, being careful.

Don't trust the Catholics basically.

Instead of trying to communicate with the average family

it was just to treat them all the same.

Whether they're Republican, Nationalist

or just an ordinary Catholic family,

you dehumanize them, they're nothing,

they're just Catholics and that's it,

they're our enemy.

- [Narrator] And if Catholics were the enemy

Ballymurphy was the enemies heartland.

- From 1971 onwards specialist ranges were constructed.

All the streets had been given British names,

and English names and the map itself

is clearly marked Killymurphy,

with it's obvious associations.

And if you actually look at the pictures,

you need to do a double take to realize

that you weren't actually looking at a street

in Ballymurphy which is almost identical.

- [Narrator] And so it became a war.

British Army tactics in Belfast had given moral force

to the IRA.

Nationalists and even most Catholics now regarded the army

as the enemy just as the army now regarded them.

(people shouting) (people screaming)

- All those three days did, apart from take innocent

peoples lives was make the community stronger

and turn more and more people towards the IRA.

- If you complain about this, or say about this,

it's only IRA propaganda.

We're gonna tell you something, look everybody round here

needn't be an IRA man but they're definitely support it now.

- [Narrator] But the Army in Belfast showed few signs

of understanding what they'd done.

70 miles away in Derry, things were a little different.

There army and police commanders were adopting

a rather more conciliatory approach,

even leaving the defensive barricades of Free Derry intact.

The officer class in Belfast was openly disapproving,

as General Sir Mike Jackson, then a young captain

in One Para later recalled.

- [Mike] The 1st Battalion have helped to ensure

that there were no, no go areas in Belfast.

And a certain contempt was felt for such areas

existing elsewhere in the province.

- [Narrator] Just five months after the Ballymurphy killings

the British Army sent One Para from Belfast to Derry,

to help control a huge anti-internment march.

- The people running the Derry operation in the army,

were aghast at the idea of the Para One going in

and policing in inverted commas, this demonstration

because they knew what the First Para regiment were about.

They knew their track record, they knew what they'd done

in Ballymurphy.

So they didn't want them there.

(people shouting)

- [Narrator] At the end of that March,

in less then 20 minutes One Para shot dead,

13 innocent people, a 14th died four months later.

The day became known as Bloody Sunday.

Just as they did at Ballymurphy Army spokesmen

immediately claimed the victims included gunmen

and bombers as well.

One of the sources for that discredited claim

was One Para's press officer, Captain Mike Jackson.

And it was not the first time Captain Jackson

had issued such a statement.

- [Interviewer] Do you know who the captain was,

who told the press that John Laverty and your dad

were gunmen?

- No.

- [Interviewer] You might be interested in seeing this book,

it's the autobiography of General Sir Mike Jackson,

who became Chief of Staff of the British Army,

and there's a bit in it where he describes what happened

in Ballymurphy that day.

- [Mike] When dealing with the barricaded Ballymurphy estate

the battalion fought a fierce gun battle

with an estimated 20 gunmen.

I was just around the corner, dealing with the press.

- So is this the man then that give the media

the information that my daddy was an IRA gunman?

- [Interviewer] This is clearly the implication of that.

- General Sir Mike Jackson.

No, I bet you he's won medals and stuff,

and they should just be taken off him

because he doesn't deserve them.

And he shouldn't be even called a General,

he doesn't even deserve to be called a soldier.

- [Narrator] After Ballymurphy and then Bloody Sunday,

the pattern was set.

1972 became the most violent year of the troubles.

Killing by all sides grew.

In July, just a few hundred yards from Ballymurphy

five more unarmed people were shot dead in Spring Hill,

among them a 13 year old girl and a priest.

A colleague of Father Mullan.

- When we lost another priest, Noel Fitzpatrick,

again it was the same thing.

Catholic priests being killed was something that happened

in Latin America, killing Priests wasn't on the menu

for a long time in Ireland and then all of a sudden

it happened.

- [Narrator] The violence continued for 30 years,

more then 3,500 people died, and tens of thousands

were injured before the Good Friday agreement

finally brought an end to the troubles in 1998.

And with peace has come the search for the truth.

In 2011 after years of campaigning,

the Ballymurphy families finally won the promise

of a renewed inquest into the deaths.

An inquest cannot establish criminal responsibility,

but it can establish whether the force used

was justified or not, for the families

that would be a start.

But even before the formal hearing have begun

the MOD has been criticized by the coroner

for delays in supplying important information

requested by the court.

- It makes me so angry, that we have to take to the streets

to get to the truth, but that's why we're here today.

To make our voices heard.

(crowd cheers) (crowd applauds)

- [Narrator] It's clear the new inquest

could have serious implications for the MOD,

and the government.

- We have taken great inspiration and hope

from the Bloody Sunday relatives,

for the way they have campaigned for the truth,

which resulted in their loved ones being declared innocent.

- [Narrator] It took 40 years of campaigning

before the official inquiry into Bloody Sunday,

the most expensive in British history,

found the victims innocent.

But that inquiry also considered another

very serious charge, that the Army sent One Para

to Derry knowing what they were likely to do,

or even intending that they should do it.

The inquiry rejected that claim.

- [Male] We are of the view that neither

of these propositions can be sustained.

- [Narrator] The government and the army command

were off the hook.

Saville said they were not to blame for Bloody Sunday.

But if the truth is now told about what happened

in Ballymurphy the official history of Bloody Sunday

and what followed may have to be rewritten.

- In my view Bloody Sunday was entirely predictable.

The evidence was there from the three days of violence

in Ballymurphy, the evidence was in the hands

of the senior military officers.

- If steps would have been taken to look at what happened

in Ballymurphy, admit what had gone wrong,

Bloody Sunday would never have occurred

and if Bloody Sunday would never have occurred

I would suggest many more deaths after that

would never occur.

- There is a demand for justice,

but it is motivated dear friends by love, not vengeance.

It's love for your relatives, young Frank Quinn,

Father Mullan, Joan Connolly, Joseph Murphy,

Noel Phillips, Daniel Taggert, Eddie Docherty,

Joseph Corr, John Laverty, Paddy McCarthy

and John McKerr.

- It's not a matter of rewriting history,

we're just trying to ratify history.

It has to be told, the truth has to be told,

warts and all, and I think people don't realize

everybody's pain's the same.

A soldier gets shot, his parents and his families pain's

the same as mine, what makes people think

that they're pains any worse then mine

or any less then mine?

We're all suffering the same thing.

So the truth needs to be told, that's the only way

you can draw a line on the past, tell the truth.

- I know my brothers innocent,

we know the other people are innocent,

and I would like the British government to know

that we will never stop,

'cause we will have our day in court.

(somber string music)