On 30 January 1972, soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment opened fire on a civil rights march in the Bogside area of Derry/Londonderry, killing 13 people and injuring many more. A fourteenth victim, John Johnston, died some months later on 16 June 1972, reportedly from his injuries.

The massacre, which became known as “Bloody Sunday”, was the deadliest single shooting incident during the Troubles. The killings caused widespread fury across the minority nationalist-Catholic community. They sparked a surge in recruitment for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and led to the collapse of the Stormont government, precipitating the imposition of direct rule from London.

The march was organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) to protest the policy of internment without trial. This policy, introduced in August 1971 under Operation Demetrius, saw 342 people arrested in initial raids and caused huge resentment within the Catholic-nationalist community.

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By January 1972, the security situation had deteriorated drastically; two Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers had been shot dead in Derry just three days before the march. Despite a ban on all parades, NICRA leaders proceeded, reportedly obtaining assurances from the IRA that their members would withdraw to ensure a peaceful protest.

NICRA placed “special emphasis on the necessity for a peaceful incident-free day”.

At approximately 2:50 pm, thousands of marchers left the Creggan Estate. By 3:45 pm, the main body of the march turned towards ‘Free Derry Corner’ on Rossville Street. But a section of the crowd confronted British Army barriers at William Street, and rioting ensued.

At 3:55 pm, paratroopers in a derelict building on William Street fired five rounds, injuring Damien Donaghy, aged 15, and John Johnston, 59.

At 4:07 pm, the support company of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment was ordered to move into William Street to begin making arrests. The order specified that soldiers were “not to conduct running battle down Rossville Street.” However, at 4:10 pm, soldiers began firing live rounds into the area of the Rossville Street Flats.

The shooting is said to have ended at 4:40 pm.

The army claimed afterwards that they had been responding to attacks from gunmen and nail bombers – claims rejected by civilian eyewitnesses.

In total, 21 soldiers fired 108 rounds. British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians. No soldiers were injured, and no guns or bombs were recovered at the scene.

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On 31 January 1972, Reginald Maudling, the home secretary, delivered a statement to the House of Commons, maintaining that the paratroopers had responded to attacks from gunmen and bombers.

Maudling stated: “The House will have heard with deep anxiety that a number of people were killed and injured in the course of disturbances in Londonderry yesterday…

“A large number of trouble-makers refused to accept the instructions of the march stewards and attacked the army with stones, bottles, steel bars and canisters of CS [tear gas].

“The army met this assault with two water cannon, CS, and rubber bullets only. The GOC has further reported that when the army advanced to make arrests among the trouble-makers they came under fire from a block of flats and other quarters.

“At this stage the members of the orderly, although illegal, march were no longer in the near vicinity. The army returned the fire directed at them with aimed shots and inflicted a number of casualties on those who were attacking them with firearms and with bombs.”

Maudling announced the establishment of an inquiry “into the circumstances of the march and the incidents leading up to the casualties which resulted”.

Bernadette Devlin, the MP for Mid Ulster and Irish civil rights leader who had been in attendance for the Derry/Londonderry march, was denied the opportunity to speak by Selwyn Lloyd, the speaker of the commons.

Devlin accused the home secretary of misleading MPs, declaring: “Is it in order for the minister to lie to this House?”

In response to a question from Labour MP Jock Stallard, Maudling stated: “The army was there yesterday to assist the civil power in enforcing the law against a deliberate attempt to break the law.

“That is our duty, and when people fire on troops, when people attack soldiers with bullets and bombs, they must expect retaliation.”

Devlin responded: “On a point of order, Mr Speaker, that is the second time the minister has stood up and lied to the House. Nobody shot at the paratroops, but somebody will shortly.”

She finally addressed the House at the conclusion of Maudling’s statement on a point of order.

Devlin declared: “On a point of order, I am the only person in this House who was present yesterday when, whatever the facts of the situation might be said…

“Shut up! I have a right, as the only representative in this House who was an eye witness, to ask a question of that murdering hypocrite.”

The commons speaker, Lloyd, simply denied that Devlin had a right to address the House, which was challenged by a series of MPs.

Devlin subsequently launched at the home secretary, slapping Maudling across the face. Conservative MP John Biggs-Davison rose on a point of order to condemn Devlin’s “violent attack”.

Devlin responded: “I did not shoot him in the back, which is what they did to our people.”

When later asked if she intended to apologise, she replied: “I’m just sorry I didn’t get him by the throat.”

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Edward Heath, the then prime minister, later reflected on the incident.

He told the commons in November 1985: “I remember very well when an honourable lady [Devlin] rushed from the opposition benches and hit Mr Maudling. I remember that vividly because I thought that she was going to hit me. She could not stretch as far as that, so she had to make do with him.”

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On 1 February 1972, Heath appointed the lord chief justice, Lord Widgery, to lead an inquiry into the events of 30 January.

In an opposition adjournment debate on 1 February, Lord Balniel, the minister of state for defence, reiterated the state’s official account of events. He referred to what he described as “inaccurate or untrue statements” made about the soldiers on duty.

Balniel added: “We must also recognise that the IRA is waging a war, not only of bullets and bombs but of words. It is waging a highly skilled war of propaganda, in which corpses, the unutterable sadness of relatives, the confusion, the gullibility and the downright lies are all brought into play.

“If the IRA is allowed to win this war I shudder to think what will be the future of the people living in Northern Ireland.”

Devlin rose to deliver her account of events. She rejected the suggestion that the soldiers had simply lost control. “Whatever the reasons may be – and the permutations may be endless – I personally do not believe that the paratroops went berserk”, she said.

“I do not believe that a regiment like the British Parachute Regiment is trained and then goes berserk.

Devlin argued that their actions reflected routine conduct. “It was a normal ordinary exercise to those men. I do not think they lost any night’s sleep over it, but they fired into a crowd of unarmed civilians and thousands lay there.”

She placed the killings within a longer history of conflict, declaring: “This is not our first bloody Sunday at the hands of the British Army… We have been kicked and batoned by the police, we have been imprisoned and interned and finally we have been slaughtered by the British Army. But we have yet to be defeated.”

Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, responded by quoting a statement attributed to Devlin in which she had reportedly said: “The official and the provisional IRA. have each said they will kill 13 paratroopers in vengeance for those who died on Sunday. That is 26 coffins coming home to England, and I won’t shed a tear for any one of them.”

Paisley told the House that those listening to Devlin’s speech would recognise “something of the hatred and real terror with which Northern Ireland is being gripped.”

Maudling closed the debate for the government as home secretary. “People who attack British soldiers with bullets and bombs are themselves responsible for the degree of force that the Army has to use to resist them”, he said.

“Those who deliberately set about defying the law and attacking the law carry a very heavy responsibility.”

On 2 February, the funerals of 11 of those killed were held in the Creggan area of Derry, drawing tens of thousands of mourners.

The Irish Republic observed a national day of mourning. President Éamon de Valera and the taoiseach, Jack Lynch, attended special church services in remembrance of the dead. In Dublin, public anger spilled onto the streets. During a protest attended by an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people, the British embassy was set ablaze and burned to the ground.

The Widgery tribunal, which reported on 19 April 1972 after just 11 weeks, was widely condemned as a whitewash. Widgery concluded that the first shots fired on Bloody Sunday were directed at the soldiers, who were largely exonerated.

“To those who seek to apportion responsibility for the events of 30 January the question ‘Who fired first?’ is vital”, Widgery wrote. “I am entirely satisfied that the first firing in the courtyard was directed at the soldiers.”

He praised the soldiers’ testimony, remarking that those of 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment (1 Para) had given evidence “with confidence and without hesitation or prevarication” and had withstood cross-examination “without contradicting themselves or each other.”

Widgery instead placed responsibility on the organisers of the civil rights march, arguing that there would have “been no deaths in Londonderry on 30 January if those who organised the illegal march had not thereby created a highly dangerous situation in which a clash… was almost inevitable.”

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The Widgery findings remained the official account for 26 years until Tony Blair established the Saville inquiry in 1998 as part of the Northern Ireland peace process.

The Saville inquiry, so-called after its chairman, Lord Saville of Newdigate, reported on 15 June 2010 after 12 years of hearings and at a cost of £191 million – making it the longest and most expensive inquiry in British legal history. Its conclusions comprehensively overturned Widgery’s report.

Saville concluded that all those killed were unarmed and posed no threat.

He stated that the soldiers who entered the Bogside did so on the basis of an order “which should not have been given”.

He found that “none of the casualties shot by soldiers of Support Company was armed with a firearm”.

The report stated that although there was some firing by republican paramilitaries, “none of this firing provided any justification for the shooting of civilian casualties.”

The report also found that none of the victims were armed or posed a threat, concluding that the soldiers had “knowingly put forward false accounts in order to seek to justify their firing.” The report referred to one person who was shot while “crawling… away from the soldiers”.

The report stated: “The immediate responsibility for the deaths and injuries on Bloody Sunday lies with those members of support company whose unjustifiable firing was the cause of those deaths and injuries…

“The firing by soldiers of 1 Para on Bloody Sunday caused the deaths of 13 people and injury to a similar number, none of whom was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury.

“What happened on Bloody Sunday strengthened the Provisional IRA, increased nationalist resentment and hostility towards the army and exacerbated the violent conflict of the years that followed.

“Bloody Sunday was a tragedy for the bereaved and the wounded, and a catastrophe for the people of Northern Ireland.”

The report maintained: “Despite the contrary evidence given by soldiers, we have concluded that none of them fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers. No one threw or threatened to throw a nail or petrol bomb at the soldiers on Bloody Sunday.”

In response, David Cameron, the prime minister, issued a formal apology in the House of Commons, describing the killings as “unjustified and unjustifiable”.

Cameron stated: “Some members of our armed forces acted wrongly. The government are ultimately responsible for the conduct of the armed forces, and for that, on behalf of the government – indeed, on behalf of our country – I am deeply sorry.”

Mark Durkan, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MP for Foyle, welcomed the prime minister’s statement.

He called on the prime minister to confirm that “every one of the victims – Bernard McGuigan, 41; Gerald Donaghey, 17; Hugh Gilmour, 17; John Duddy, 17; Gerard McKinney, 34; James Wray, 22; John Young, 17; Kevin McElhinney, 17; Michael Kelly, 17; Michael McDaid, 20; Patrick Doherty, 31; William McKinney, 27; William Nash, 19; and John Johnston, 59 – are all absolutely and totally exonerated by today’s report.”

Cameron replied that those killed on Bloody Sunday were “innocent of anything that justified them being shot.”

The Saville inquiry came in for criticism among some representatives of the unionist community. Ahead of publication, DUP MP Gregory Campbell called on ministers to resist any “revisionism” in the report.

In response to Cameron’s statement on 15 June 2010, Campbell argued there had been “10,000 other bloody days in Northern Ireland’s recent history”.

He added: “Many have said that the difference between Bloody Sunday and the other atrocities that I have alluded to was that Bloody Sunday was carried out by state forces, whereas other murders were carried out by terrorists.

“There has been no similar inquiry into the financing of the Provisional IRA at the inception of that organisation by another state – the Irish Republic.”

Campbell said he was pleased that the “sorry saga of the report is finally over and done”.