Over fifty years ago, James Wray and William McKinney were murdered at a civil rights protest in Derry when British paratroopers opened fire on unarmed civilians.
In October 2025, the only soldier ever charged in connection with the killings was acquitted of attempted murder and found not guilty of murder. All seven counts towards the former paratrooper, known as Soldier F, were dropped. The British murdered fourteen people on Bloody Sunday, and multiple others were wounded. The British state not only killed innocent Irish civilians, but it also decided that their deaths would never legally matter and that justice would never be given.
Belfast Crown Court Judge Patrick Lynch ruled that “the prosecution cannot establish by whose hand the fatal shots were fired”. He did acknowledge British troops “shot unarmed civilians in the back… as they were fleeing from them, on the streets of a British city,” and those involved should “hang their heads in shame”, but without the weapon and evidence from the day itself, justice can’t be served.
The evidence needed was the weapons from the day, as well as the bullets. Clear, accurate accounts that weren’t labelled as untrustworthy were also needed, but this was not done. The state and military obscured the truth, covering up the murders and allowing the pursuit of justice to drag on for years until it was ultimately denied.
Soldier F, who has been implicated in military crimes, has had his dignity protected whilst the innocent lay dead, their families continue fighting, and another generation has proof that Ireland remains trapped beneath an unequal justice system.
The British State is not the only protection Soldier F has had. He has been protected by the systems in place and upheld by the patriarchy. The British Army has always been a boys’ club; it is built on cultural supremacy, toxic masculinity and has had a long history of abusing women both internally and externally of the forces.
This culture still exists. We can see it in the case of ex-soldier Robert James Purkiss, arrested for the murder of Agnes Wanjiru, whose murder was not investigated by the British Government or Armed Forces until thirteen years later. We also see it in the failure to protect Jaysley Beck after she had reported sexual assault internally in the Armed Forces. It is all the same institution.
Since before the Troubles, the Army has been sold to the public as a place of protection, honour and dignity, but it really is the opposite of this. It is a system built on hierarchy, obedience, domination and following orders regardless of whether they are wrong. It is part of a wider patriarchal and colonial machine that turns humans into weapons and labels certain lives more important than others. Dismantling the empire and the infrastructure left behind also means dismantling the patriarchy and standing with the victims whose suffering has been ignored or squashed by the state.
Remembering Bloody Sunday is not about reopening old wounds; it is about exposing how colonialism and its crimes are still shaping the world today. The British Empire always relied on controlling bodies, silencing victims and the grieving, and enforcing hierarchy. The British state not only killed civilians in Ireland, but it also decided their deaths would never legally matter and that justice would always be delayed and denied.
Bloody Sunday reflects the violence and inequality still embedded in Britain’s relationship with Ireland. Soldier F’s acquittal is a reminder of how power protects itself and how the courts will affirm that British soldiers’ lives and reputations are worth more than Irish, or anyone’s, lives. Colonial powers have always depended on this erasure and silencing of grief to transform state violence into something that can be defended. British propaganda painted Irish mothers as hysterical and their dead children as terrorists; any grief was seen as disloyalty to the crown, and sadly, this propaganda continues to shape the course of justice today.
Even the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 appears to be a colonial document masquerading as reconciliation. It is an act that tells the families of the dead to be grateful for silence, and it protects perpetrators of unspeakable war crimes under the banner of ‘peace’. It is gaslighting by the state as it acknowledges that suffering did happen, but it will be erased. For generations, this suffering has been kept alive by those left behind and those who survived violence. In every chapter of Ireland’s colonial story, there has been the labour of remembrance, and today that is no different.
The refusal to hold anyone accountable for Bloody Sunday is part of the same machinery that has excused centuries of British violence in Ireland. The Famine, the Ballymurphy massacre, internment without trials, and the RUC’s (Royal Ulster Constabulary) collusion with death squads are all proof that Britain has written its own innocence into Irish suffering. If these crimes had happened to innocent English civilians, I doubt it would have taken years of delayed trials and presumed innocence to point the accusing finger.
The rhetoric of the British Empire is very much alive and well in 2025. Just look at the commentary surrounding Soldier F’s trial. We have politicians like Jim Allister claiming that the soldier should have been left to live in peace and that the trial never should have happened, and others claiming it is a witch hunt to go after these soldiers who were involved in war crimes.
There is the idea that following orders removes the crime and that everything was done to protect law and order, but that is not the case; the crime still very much exists, and so does the suffering. Unfortunately, the descendants of the colonised, whether it be Irish, South Asian, Caribbean or many more, are told to ‘move on’ and be grateful for the system they live in.
In the words of Edward Said, empire survives through culture, and this can be via the language used and also commodification. Today, Irish culture is seemingly everywhere across England and Scotland. The exporting of Irish music, literature, or cultural markers seems to be a fake proof of reconciliation, whilst importing none of the guilt. Everyone wants to wear a Claddagh ring, drink Guinness in Temple Bar and support Kneecap, but in the same breath, many won’t reckon with the blood behind the history or the message in Kneecap’s songs. None of this appetite for Irishness is extending to a demand for justice. This is all the soft face of colonialism, after centuries of demonising the Irish as violent, as terrorists, as drunks, as stupid, the English are now packaging the culture as charming, soulful and marketable.
This cultural love is allowing people to feel progressive without being radical and without political responsibility. Frantz Fanon once warned that the coloniser often rebrands the colonised identity once resistance has been suppressed. It is easy to celebrate Irish music in the pub on a Friday night or repost Free Mo’Chara, but it is harder to demand the repeal of a political act, and it is harder to fight for real justice. It is so much easier to idealise Irish resilience than it is to acknowledge that the British state continues to hide its crimes. This new wave of cultural aesthetics thrives on nostalgia; the trauma is entirely left out, and the narrative is still being controlled by those away from Ireland.
Sadly, Bloody Sunday and its aftermath won’t make it into these aesthetics or onto repostable graphics for Instagram stories.
This all boils down to the colonial logic of innocence, as Frantz Fanon coined it. The idea that the coloniser cannot commit a crime, only a mistake. This acquittal of Soldier F is exactly what the British state wanted because that is how the system is designed. The violence of the oppressed will always be criminal, and the violence of the state will always be an act of order. Britain will insist that this acquittal signals that it is time to finally move on and that justice has finally been served, but the families of Bloody Sunday have left that courtroom with no justice. They know that members of the secret Military Reaction Force, members of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute regiment and those in charge, who murdered innocent civilians, are living out the rest of their days on a pension with no consequences.
Mickey McKinney, brother of deceased William McKinney, said, “Despite the heroism, steadfastness and dignity of the Bloody Sunday Families and Wounded, a coward walks free from the dock… creeping out the back door.” The families and the deceased have had no dignity, no freedom to hide from media onslaught and have simply been told that it is time to move on.
The state can bury their crimes, but victims have to continue to fight and keep the memories alive so a new generation can continue to fight for the truth and for fair punishment. The burden of remembrance always falls to the colonised, but it shouldn’t; it is in every citizen’s best interest to fight against outdated structures that keep Britain’s crimes buried. This system is what justifies wars abroad and inequality on our soil; it is also the same system that constantly encroaches on basic civil and human rights. It is a system that desperately needs to change so the dead can finally be grieved in dignity, without the fight for justice looming over them.
