A former Bishop of Derry has spoken of the relief and joy felt by the vindication offered to the Bloody Sunday victims and witnesses by the Saville report.
Bishop Edward Daly, who was a curate at the time of Bloody Sunday in January 1972, said: “There was no vindictiveness or no ugliness or no triumphalism, there was just relief, elation and sheer happiness."
A photo of him waving a bloodied white handkerchief while helping a wounded man down the street in the Bogside became an enduring image of the day.
Speaking of the famous handkerchief today, he said: “There were five of us living in the parochial house at the cathedral. We all had our own things and they all went into the same wash so we had to have our name on it."
Bishop Daly had joined the ill-fated civil rights march on Bloody Sunday as it passed the city cathedral. The then 39-year-old was standing next to John ‘Jackie’ Duddy when the teenager was shot in the back.
Remembering the incident this morning, Bishop Daly told RTÉ radio's Today with Pat Kenny show that he said on the day mass murder had taken place as Jackie Duddy "was shot right beside me and I knew that he didn't pose any threat to anyone".
"I just heard his gasp when he felt to the ground, I was incredulous.
“I was a witness, I was with Jackie in the last few moments of his life and I always felt it was incumbent on me to give witness to that fact and give witness to his innocence."
Bishop Daly said that since the report by Lord Widgery into the events "cast a cloud over all the victims and sullied their characters" he believed it was important that the situation be rectified and that the victims be vindicated.
He said the publication of the inquiry was a “wonderful moment” as it proved all of the victims were innocent.
“I was sitting in the Guildhall [in Derry] with the families of the victims; we were very tense waiting on the report…there was a hall full of people from republican backgrounds, nationalist backgrounds the Bogside and Creggan…their applause and cheering for a British prime minister was something quite remarkable."