IRA arms moved before demonstration, Inquiry hears

A taxi driver today claimed he saw IRA weapons being moved out of the Bogside before the march which turned into Bloody Sunday…

A taxi driver today claimed he saw IRA weapons being moved out of the Bogside before the march which turned into Bloody Sunday.

Mr Frankie Boyle told the Saville Inquiry six cars were used to ferry the weapons, wrapped in plastic bags, from the district to the neighbouring Creggan estate in the early hours of Sunday January 30th 1972.

Mr Boyle, who was 34 and on the night shift at City Cabs at the time, said 25 men and four girls were involved in the operation, which lasted about an hour and a half and involved three or four runs.

He later identified one of the women - alleged to have been arrested and named in newspapers in the late 1980s - by writing down her name and handing it over to a tribunal lawyer.

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Giving evidence at the Guildhall in Derry, he said: "It was obvious what was happening as there was a lot of movement and these were the only cars around. I think they must have been tipped off that Paratroopers were going to be involved in the march."

Day 122 of oral hearings heard that a Dunkirk veteran urged his son to stay away from the march because Paratroopers were expected to be there.

Mr Paddy Morrow said his father warned that the presence of the Paras meant "there would be trouble".

Another witness, Ms Patricia Jarvis, told the tribunal she saw the first youth to die that day turn to see a soldier firing "randomly and at anything" as he was gunned down.

She described Jackie Duddy fleeing across the car park of the Rossville Flats from advancing Paratroopers, then stopping and looking round, facing the soldier when he was hit.

The youth was later famously filmed being carried away, with the then Fr Edward Daly to the fore waving a blood-stained handkerchief.

Mr Boyle claimed he saw the people who had removed the weapons snoozing in the same cars in the Creggan estate as the march set off from there the following afternoon.

He also told the inquiry he saw one of the victims, Michael McDaid - a next-door neighbour arrested, thrown into the back of a troop carrier and escape, only to be shot dead.

He placed the military vehicles south of the rubble barricade across Rossville Street - in contrast to evidence in general which suggests the troops never crossed that barrier.

Twenty-year-old barman Mr McDaid, who features in several photographs of Rossville Street on Bloody Sunday, was one of three men shot dead on the rubble barricade straddling the road.

Mr Boyle claimed Mr McDaid was throwing stones and was arrested with two or three others and thrown into the back of an armoured personnel carrier before a soldier fired a canister of CS gas inside.

"About two or three of the lads including Michael McDaid escaped from the back. They were choking on the CS gas," he claimed.

"Michael McDaid ran away from the Saracen [armoured personnel carrier] ... when he was about 20 yards away, I heard a bang and saw him fall to the ground. He was not carrying any weapons and all he was doing when he was shot was rubbing his eyes from the effects of the CS gas."

Shown a photograph alleged to have been taken moments before Mr McDaid's death, Mr Boyle was asked why Mr McDaid seemed to appear tidy and unstressed.

He replied: "It must have been taken before he was arrested."

The inquiry was adjourned until Monday morning.

PA