A day for remembrance. Bloody Sunday 1920.
Bloody Sunday 1920, Dublin, Ireland.
If I was to just write the facts here,
- 14 People dead.
- 60 - 100 injured.
- Gunmen in the national stadium.
- Hundreds of rounds of rifle fire plus pistol shots.
You might think it was a terrorist attack from a modern day group.
In fact, it was an attack by the British armed forces on an unarmed civilian population during a football match.
They rolled into the national stadium with armored cars and tanks before firing indiscriminately into the crowd and killed 13 spectators and one player in a frenzy that could have ended a lot worse than it did.
It's only a miracle that more people weren't killed as they released hundreds of rifle shots into the stands as spectators and kids ran for their lives from the British forces.
From the national Archives, reported by RTE:
The toll
Fourteen people died of gunshot wounds and crush injuries. The exact number of injured has never been agreed. Somewhere between sixty and a hundred.
The dead of Croke Park are often described in the order in which they died. A simple list, as in the conclusions of the official inquiries, can be just as chilling.
The official opinion of the Mater Hospital Inquiry in the following weeks listed the dead that had passed through its doors:
James Matthews (48): Death from shock and haemorrhage caused by a bullet wound received on that date.
John William Scott (14): Death from shock and haemorrhage caused by a bullet wound received on that date.
Patrick O'Dowd (57): Death from laceration of the brain caused by a bullet wound received on that date.
Jerome O'Leary (10): Death from shock and haemorrhage caused by a bullet wound received on that date.
William Robinson (11): Death from shock and haemorrhage caused by a bullet wound received on that date.
Thomas Hogan (19): Toxaemia following gas gangrene following gunshot wounds received on that date.
Jane Boyle (28): Death from shock and haemorrhage caused by a bullet wound received on that date.
The dead brought to Jervis Street Hospital:
James Burke (44): Crushed to death. Shock and heart failure.
Daniel Carroll (30): Shot in the leg. Blood loss.
Michael Feery (30): Impaled on a spike on the ground's perimeter. Blood loss.
Thomas Ryan (27): Shot in the stomach.
James Teehan (26): Crushed to death.
Joe Traynor (20): Shot twice in the back.
Michael Hogan (24): Shot three times in the back.
This weekend is 100 years since the tragedy and it still holds a lot of memories for Irish people. Nobody should go to a sporting event and have to worry about making it home alive. This is the year that we remember those tragic spectators that were so cruelly cut down on what should have been a day out in Croke park.
The stadium still stands to this day and will forever be the home of our national sports which are some of the oldest in the world. There is a unity and a history to the GAA that binds our country together that goes far beyond the ordinary sporting ties.
Our sports are part of our history and have a deeper meaning to the people of this island. They go back centuries and play a huge part in the founding of the Republic that we live in today. They formed a part of our resistance against the British empire and gave people a home away form home. They still do to this day.