"It never leaves you" - Bloody Sunday victim's brother 50 years on
Michael McKinney's sibling William was fatally shot by the army on January 30, 1972
Last updated 28th Jan 2022
The brother of a Bloody Sunday victim has been reflecting on events, as a landmark anniversary approaches.
On January 30, 1972, members of the Parachute Regiment opened fire during a civil rights protest in Londonderry.
It came as 20,000 people turned out in Derry's Bogside to demonstrate against internment, which involved the mass arrest of people and imprisonment without trial.
The army's elite branch began shooting just after 4pm after a skirmish on the protest route, and ten minutes later, 13 unarmed civilians were dead.
Another man shot by paratroopers that day died four months later.
The findings of the Saville Report, an inquiry into what happened on that day, was published in 2010, with the then Prime Minister David Cameron apologising to the families, saying what the armed forced did was "unjustified and unjustifiable".
Michael McKinney's brother William was one of those who lost their lives on that day.
He said he can scarcely believe half a century has passed.
He said: "Where did it go? Where did those 50 years go? It went so quickly, but the thoughts and the memory of that day - it's just like yesterday.
"It's always there, it never goes away. You learn to live with it and there are times like this week, doing interviews, being questioned - sometimes there's emotion there to be pulled at and that's... you're only human, uneasy as it is, but you get on with it.
"I think you just go into a reserve if there is a reserve.
“At the time we got the report, I was liaising with the families, and just the intensity of all that was going on, you just have to get on with it.
“There's nothing you can do.”
A mass at St Mary's Church will take place on Friday January 28, while there'll be a wreath laying at 11am on Sunday January 30 at the Bloody Sunday Memorial, and a minute's silence will be held at 4pm in the Guildhall Square.
Michael says it is a great sense of comfort that the eyes of the world will turn to Derry on Sunday as the city remembers the atrocity.
He added: "There's some emotion there - as the day goes by, I think we're all going to start to feel it because we are being brought into it all again.
“How could you not feel it?
"I'm certainly appreciative for the lengths that people have gone to, to remember, that's very important and it's comforting."
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