Conclusion: Trajectories of Memory

Abstract

In the first chapter of this book I posed a fairly straightforward question: how has the way Bloody Sunday been commemorated changed over time and how can this change be accounted for? In attempting to answer this question I talked to people who worked over the years in keeping the memory of the event alive. I examined newspaper accounts, letters, commemorative programmes, press releases and the like in search of information about when various sites of memory emerged, how they changed, who was involved in them, whether they were associated with controversy and how each connected with others. I took photographs of various commemorative events and participated as an observer in them from 2004 to the present. I listened to many people speaking informally about what Bloody Sunday meant to them. I attended the final public sittings of the Saville Inquiry. Taken together, I assembled an extensive and rich body of empirical data to bring to bear upon the key question guiding this book. Before considering the future of Bloody Sunday memory and the similarities and differences between it and other historical events in other times and places it is worth reminding ourselves of the key argument and empirical patterns identified in earlier chapters.

In recent years we have found that, despite the passage of time, Bloody Sunday is still an event which moves almost everyone in Derry. Even the younger generation, as can be seen by the excellent poem contained in this document, and people who weren’t even born before January 72 have had the collective memory of the event etched into their young consciousness.

1996 Bloody Sunday commemoration programme