Bloody Sunday Where Mutual Hostility Exploded Into Massacre Bloody Sunday was a tragedy for the bereaved and the wounded, and a catastrophe for the people of Northern Ireland. What came to be known as Bloody Sunday was a demonstration in Londonderry in Northern Ireland on Sunday, January 30, 1972, by Catholic supporters of civil rights that turned violent when British paratroopers opened fire, killing 13 and injuring 14 others (one of the injured later died). Bloody Sunday caused an upsurge in support for the IRA which advocated violence against the United Kingdom to force it to withdraw from Northern Ireland. The incident remained a source of controversy for decades, with competing accounts of the events. In June 2010 the Saville Report, the final pronouncement of a government inquiry initiated by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998, concluded that none of the victims had posed any immediate threat to the soldiers and that their shooting was therefore with