[A-List] British media -- a personal experience

["James Daly" <james.irldaly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The British Media -- a personal experience

Exactly a week after British paratroopers shot dead 14 unarmed
demonstrators in Derry on Bloody Sunday on 30 January 1972 I heard on
the BBC 8 a.m. news that the paratrooper barracks at Aldershot had
been blown up and three paratroopers killed. At nine o'clock it was
six, at 10 eight, at 11 ten, at 12 thirteen... but at 1 p.m. (and here
I feel like Leporello chronicling the conquests of Don Juan)... BUT AT
1 P.M. ... the paratrooper barracks at Aldershot had been blown up,
and the fatalities were five cleaning ladies and a padre.

Several years later I read in the London Times that 13 paratroopers
had the previous day dived into the Kiel Canal and been drowned. There
was no inquiry into their amazing group incompetence. (By the way, it
was frequently reported at that time that British soldiers had walked
into railway tunnels and been killed by oncoming trains).

An afterthought -- Conor Cruise O'Brien asked rhetorically "What
version of Irish history in our education system is responsible for
Aldershot?" He did not ask "What version of British history is
responsible for Bloody Sunday?"

Comradely

james daly