The annual Bloody Sunday march takes place on Sunday 2nd February at 2.30pm from Creggan Shops in Derry. It will be commemorated the 1972 murder of 14 innocent civil rights protesters, the majority of who were card carrying members of the local trade union movement in the city.
Speaking ahead of the commemoration events, veteran trade unionist, Eamonn McCann said: "It’s 53 years since the death storm erupted at the bottom of Rossville St. It has blighted the Bogside down through the decades since.
"Bloody Sunday marches and anniversary activities of one sort and another now include children and even the grandchildren of those who fell under the fusillade of bullets from the parachute regiment. It’s been a long time.
"Every year we are asked – Why drag the agony out? Isn’t it time to forgive and forget? Some who are generous of heart may find it within themselves to forgive. But none of us should ever forget.
"As for the question of why we keep marching, the answer is simple. We haven’t reached our destination yet. So we’ll keep right on to the end of the road. What shining prize will we find there? Nothing material – but the greatest gift any of us can pass on to our children, and our grandchildren. The glittering truth, and the joy of justice, and the hard lessons we have learned. We cannot hug our grief to ourselves and in the meantime cast a cold eye on the agonies inflicted on much of the world around us.
"It was said from the Bloody Sunday platform a year ago that, “Palestine is the front line of the world.” And so it was and still is. Back in the 1950s, an Irish journalist working for the BBC, Erskine Childers, son of the Irish president of the same name, reported from Palestine, “If you go among them today, on the hills above Judea, they will point through the barbed wire and tell you, 'Look over there, that house beside those olive trees, that is my home'.
This IWW Ireland branch will once again gather in Derry on Sunday 2nd February 2025 at 2.30pm to attend the annual Bloody Sunday commemoration, along with those families who continue to March for Justice.
All trade union flags and banners are welcome.
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