Bloody Sunday (1972) - Artistic Reaction

Artistic Reaction

The incident has been commemorated by Irish band, U2, in their 1983 protest song "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

The John Lennon album Some Time in New York City features a song entitled "Sunday Bloody Sunday", inspired by the incident, as well as the song "The Luck of the Irish", which dealt more with the Irish conflict in general. Lennon, who was of Irish descent, also spoke at a protest in New York in support of the victims and families of Bloody Sunday.

The Roy Harper song "All Ireland" from the album Lifemask, written in the days following the incident, is critical of the military but takes a long term view with regard to a solution. In Harper's book (The Passions Of Great Fortune), his comment on the song ends "..there must always be some hope that the children of 'Bloody Sunday', on both sides, can grow into some wisdom".

Paul McCartney (also of Irish descent) issued a single shortly after Bloody Sunday titled "Give Ireland Back to the Irish", expressing his views on the matter. It was one of few McCartney solo songs to be banned by the BBC.

Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler (also of Irish descent) wrote the lyrics to the Black Sabbath song "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" on the album of the same name in 1973. Butler stated, "… the Sunday Bloody Sunday thing had just happened in Ireland, when the British troops opened fire on the Irish demonstrators... So I came up with the title ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,’ and sort of put it in how the band was feeling at the time, getting away from management, mixed with the state Ireland was in."

Christy Moore's song "Minds Locked Shut" on the album Graffiti Tongue is all about the events of the day, and names the dead civilians.

The Celtic metal band Cruachan addressed the incident in a song "Bloody Sunday" from their 2004 album Folk-Lore.

The events of the day have been dramatised in the two 2002 television dramas, Bloody Sunday (starring James Nesbitt) and Sunday by Jimmy McGovern.

Brian Friel's 1973 play The Freedom of the City deals with the incident from the viewpoint of three civilians.

Irish poet Thomas Kinsella's 1972 poem Butcher's Dozen is a satirical and angry response to the Widgery Tribunal and the events of Bloody Sunday.

Irish poet Seamus Heaney's Casualty (published in Field Work, 1981) criticizes Britain for the death of his friend.

Willie Doherty, a Derry-born artist, has amassed a large body of work which addresses the troubles in Northern Ireland. "30 January 1972" deals specifically with the events of Bloody Sunday.

In mid-2005, the play Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry, a dramatisation based on the Saville Inquiry, opened in London, and subsequently travelled to Derry and Dublin. The writer, journalist Richard Norton-Taylor, distilled four years of evidence into two hours of stage performance by Tricycle Theatre. The play received glowing reviews in all the British broadsheets, including The Times: "The Tricycle's latest recreation of a major inquiry is its most devastating"; The Daily Telegraph: "I can't praise this enthralling production too highly ... exceptionally gripping courtroom drama"; and The Independent: "A necessary triumph".

The Wolfe Tones, an Irish rebel music band, wrote a song also called "Sunday Bloody Sunday" about the event.

Swedish troubadour Fred Åkerström wrote a song called "Den 30/1-72" about the incident.

In October 2010, T with the Maggies released the song Domhnach na Fola (Irish for Bloody Sunday), written by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill on their debut album.