A retired Catholic bishop famed for his role in aiding victims of the Bloody Sunday shootings during a civil rights protest in Northern Ireland in 1972 has died at the age of 82.
The former Bishop of Derry, Dr Edward Daly, was a priest when he tried to help those shot, including administering the last rites, after British paratroopers opened fire in Derry’s Catholic Bogside district on 30th January, killing 13 people. He was captured in an iconic photograph showing him waving a blood-stained white handkerchief as he tried to help fatally wounded 17-year-old Jackie Duddy.
While an initial British inquiry concluded that the British opened fire after the IRA had done so first and that the victims killed in the incident could have been armed, a subsequent, more than decade long investigation, concluded in 2010 that the soldiers were not under attack and had first fired on unarmed civilians without justification.
Bishop Daly, who later said he was “haunted” by the events of Bloody Sunday, served as the Roman Catholic Bishop of Derry from 1974 until his retirement in 1994.
Archbishop Eamon Martin, Archbishop of Armagh and Catholic Primate of Ireland, described Dr Daly as an “iconic figure” who “became a role model for all of us”.
“He was a gentle shepherd whose immense contribution to the spiritual and moral well-being of the people of Derry diocese during a troubled time shall never be forgotten,” he said in a statement. “He had a sensitive heart and generous disposition; ever caring to the sick, the bereaved, and to victims on all sides of the Troubles.”
