http://www.derryjournal.com/news/local/gerald-the-truth-1-3958010
http://www.derryjournal.com/news/local/i-will-never-stop-telling-people-the-truth-niece-1-3958920
http://www.derryjournal.com/news/local/nail-bombs-must-have-been-planted-rights-watchdog-1-3958915
A compelling new study demolishes once-and-for-all claims that a teenager murdered on Bloody Sunday was carrying nail bombs when he was shot.
Gerald Donaghey was aged just 17 when he was gunned down in the Bogside on January 30, 1972.
The Bloody Sunday Inquiry, which published its official report two years ago today, found that he was "probably" in possession of nail-bombs when he was shot - a finding which continues to anger the Donaghey family.
However, this morning at the City Hotel in Derry, a new report which brands Lord Saville’s finding as "fundamentally flawed" will be officially launched by the Mayor of Derry Kevin Campbell.
The new study includes a detailed analysis of Lord Saville’s controversial finding and concludes that the nail bombs must have been planted on the teenager by the security forces.
The report - which is available in booklet form - also includes a moving contribution from Mr. Donaghey’s niece, Geraldine Doherty, in which she vows to continue the campaign to clear her uncle’s name.
Conal McFeely, chair of the Bloody Sunday Trust, says the new report aims to "remove the stain which has hung over Gerald Donaghey’s reputation for forty years".
He told the ‘Journal’: "Hopefully it will set the truth - the whole truth - free, once and for all."
Mr. McFeely says that, given the volume of evidence to the contrary, it "beggars belief" that Lord Saville could conclude that Gerald Donaghey "probably" had four nail bombs in his pockets when he was shot dead.
He adds: "Surely, on the basis of all the evidence, the other possibility - which Saville allowed for but quickly discounted - was the more likely: that the nail bombs had been planted on Gerald after he died."
A niece of Gerald Donaghey has vowed to clear her uncle’s name.
Geraldine Doherty says she knows her uncle is innocent and insists she will "never stop telling people the truth."
Geraldine says she particularly wants to establish her uncle’s innocence for her mother, Mary Donaghey, who passed away just months after the publication of the Saville Report.
She says: "I was so happy, and my mum was so happy, when all of those who died on Bloody Sunday were declared innocent.
"We were so happy for the other families, but our own happiness was tainted by the claim that my uncle Gerald ‘probably’ had nail bombs in his pockets when he was shot.
"It was painful for us that the report could not reflect the evidence and just state that he didn’t. My mum was very ill at the time and this was her chance to have her beloved brother’s name totally cleared, but she didn’t get what she wanted, and she died just a few months later with that stain still on his name.
"But she knew, and I know, and anyone who reads or has read the evidence will know, that my uncle Gerald was not carrying nail bombs when he was shot; he was totally innocent like all the rest."
Geraldine says her uncle was "a very loving and caring boy."
""Whenever he walked into a room, he would light it up," she says. "He was a big gentle giant who loved football and fishing, the dances and, of course, the girls."
She also recalls that Gerald was only three weeks old when he was adopted by her grandparents.
"I remember my mum telling me that, when they brought Gerald home to Wellington Street, they brought him round all the relations to show him off; they were so proud of him."
She adds: "My uncle Gerald had ten wonderful happy years with his family until December 1965 when my grand-dad died and, then, my granny just four weeks later, in January 1966.
"Gerald was only ten then and my mum only nineteen when they lost both their parents in the space of a few weeks. Some members of the wider family thought Gerald should be put back into care, but my mum was determined that she would raise Gerald herself and she did. Even though she was only nine years older than him she took on a mother’s role and brought him up herself."
A London-based human rights watchdog believes nail bombs were planted on Gerald Donaghey by the security forces.
British-Irish Rights Watch (BIRW) - which has been monitoring events in the North since 1990 - says that, after a "thorough and detailed analysis" of the Saville Inquiry findings on the matter, it has concluded that the teenager did not have nail bombs in his pockets when he was killed.
Jane Winter, the organisation’s director, says the planting of the bombs "added insult to inquiry and has left Gerald Donaghey with an undeserved stain on his character - to the great grief of his family.
""We believe that, like all the other dead and injured, he was an innocent victim of what the prime minister has called unjustified and unjustifiable shooting by members of 1 Para on Bloody Sunday."
BIRW says Lord Saville’s conclusion that Gerald Donaghey was "probably" in possession of nail bombs when shot is "fundamentally flawed" and "flies in the face" of evidence presented to his Inquiry.
BIRW pinpoints a number of factors which, it says, "tend to suggest" the teenager was not armed with nail bombs but they were planted on his body after his death. They include:
* only one person claimed that Gerald Donaghey was in possession of nail bombs, and that was Patrick Ward, whose evidence the BSI found to be unreliable;
* none of the witnesses, whether civilians or members of the security forces, who saw, or, more importantly touched, Gerald Donaghey saw any nail bombs at any point before their "discovery";
* the BSI was unable to establish who first noticed nail bombs on Gerald Donaghey’s body;
* Gerald Donaghey’s body was at the Regimental Aid Post for a period of some ten minutes before anyone reported discovering any nail bomb;
* the bullet that killed Gerald Donaghey miraculously passed through the left-hand pocket of his jacket but missed the nail bomb that was, in the opinion of the Inquiry, in that pocket at that time.
According to BIRW, Lord Saville’s "flawed" findings in relation to Gerald Donaghey’s alleged possession of nail bombs served a number of purposes.
"First, and most crucially, from the point of view of Gerald Donaghey’s family, they exonerated both the police and the army of having planted nail bombs on Gerald Donaghey’s dead body. Second, they enabled the BSI to find that the IRA, whether Provisional or Official, was armed with nail bombs on Bloody Sunday."
http://www.derryjournal.com/news/local/saville-s-unfinished-business-1-3962974
http://www.derryjournal.com/news/local/saville-s-report-killed-my-mother-1-3962856
The last two men to see Bloody Sunday victim Gerald Donaghey alive say they’re "astounded" that Lord Saville ignored their evidence and concluded
the teenager was ‘probably’ armed with nail-bombs when shot.
Speaking at Friday’s launch of a booklet entitled ‘Gerald Donaghey: The Truth About the Planting of Nailbombs on Bloody Sunday’, Raymond Roganand Leo Young said they stood by their evidence to the Saville Inquiry that the 17-year-old didn’t have nail bombs when he was murdered in the Bogside in January 1972.
The booklet launched by the Bloody Sunday Trust examines all existing evidence and concludes that Saville’s 2010 ruling was "fundamentally flawed". Mr. Rogan brought the dying teenager into his home before trying to take him to Altnagelvin Hospital accompanied by Mr. Young who, at that time, was unaware his own brother was also among the dead. However, the car was stopped by the British Army and all three were detained with Gerald Donaghey left to die alone. Photographs later emerged showing a sizable nailbomb in his pocket - one of four the British Army claimed to have found on him.
Raymond Rogan told the ‘Sunday Journal’: "I often wonder what I would say to Saville if I met him face to face because, despite all the evidence, he came to the conclusion that I must be some kind of an eejit or fool and that I would carry somebody with bombs in their pockets into my house where my kids were.
"I would love to confront him and ask, ‘am I a fool or devious or what?’ I still can’t believe that he could come to that conclusion, despite all the evidence."
Mr Rogan welcomed the new Donaghey report and said he was hopeful the public would make up their own minds om whether or not nail-bombs had been planted.
"When the Saville Report was published, my first thought was that there was still unfinished business. It’s important for the wider world to look at the results of Saville’s assessment, examine all the evidence and draw their own conclusions."
Leo Young says he has never forgotten about Gerald Donaghey. Before cradling the dying teen in the back seat of Rogan’s car, he had frantically searched the boy’s pockets in the hope of identifying him and he says he knows there was nothing in his pockets.
Mr Young still can’t accept Saville’s conclusions on Donaghey.
"They ignored the civilian witnesses ," he said. "They basically called me a liar because I should have seen something that just wasn’t there. I always had faith in Saville but that particular case really upset me.
"I still find it very hard to accept that he would say Gerald ‘probably’ had bombs on him - it’s ridiculous. I hope his name is cleared for the sake of his niece, Geraldine and the family. I hope the truth will come out."
Two years ago this week, Geraldine Doherty stood shoulder to shoulder with fellow Bloody Sunday campaigners on the steps of the Guildhall and declared her uncle’s innocence to the world. Few could have realised how courageous a step this was as her uncle Gerald Donaghey was, in fact, the only person left with a ‘stain’ upon his character in the long-awaited Bloody Sunday Report...
Geraldine Doherty hopes it may re-open the debate surrounding her uncle’s case.
For 38 long years, Geraldine’s heartbroken mother Mary Doherty (nee Donaghey) had battled to clear her baby brother’s name. Mary had been to the forefront of the subsequent Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign, but sadly she would not live to see Gerald fully exonerated. Devastated by Lord Saville’s contentious ruling on her brother, Mary passed away just months after the report was published.
Geraldine still finds it difficult to talk about her mum and how much the cause meant to her. Indeed, a deeply personal account she penned in the new booklet conveys just how much the massacre of Bloody Sunday had impacted on all their lives.
"I really needed to get the human side across. I’m sure people still think to themselves ‘Gerald Donaghey - that’s the wee fella with the nail-bombs’ and they don’t know the whole story so that’s why this booklet is so important. I promised my mum I wouldn’t give up."
Gerald Donaghey was just 17-years-old when he was murdered on Bloody Sunday. He had been on the civil rights march with two close friends, Donncha and Conal McFeely. Their lives would never be the same.
"When Gerald died, his best friend Donncha could see the pain and hurt of my mother and so, in a way, he tried to protect her and take over that brotherly role. You could see that close bond that existed between them. On the day the Bloody Sunday Report came out, Donncha was so heartbroken at the thought of my mother’s reaction, he couldn’t even speak."
Gerald Donaghey had been adopted by the Donaghey family from an early age and his sister Mary loved him like no other. When tragedy suddenly struck their home, Mary became a surrogate mother too.
"My granny and granddad actually died within four weeks of each other when Gerald was only ten," Geraldine reveals. "The wider family considered putting him back in the home and my mother flatly refused. No way, she said, he had to stay with her. So she took over the mothering role when she was only 19 years-old."
Geraldine never had the opportunity to meet her uncle and namesake, having been born in 1973 one year after Bloody Sunday.
"It wasn’t until I was a bit older that I asked my mum why she always went out every January with a wreath and she told me I had an uncle who died on Bloody Sunday. I was probably eight or nine years-old then. I never met Gerald, but it’s all those wee stories my mother told me that I keep and cherish about how he was a loveable fella, really caring, and happy go-lucky. They were so close."
Changing history
Mary Doherty had been one of the core campaigners during the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign.
"Every week, Mickey McKinney would collect me and my mum and Kay Duddy to go to the campaign meetings in West End Park where we sat freezing around a wee heater wondering what we could do and coming up with ideas," Geraldine recalls. "What I remember most now is the sheer perseverance of everyone. No matter how many knocks we got, we just got up and carried on - there was no stopping us.
"I don’t think any of us imagined we would get this far, though. It wasn’t until we got solicitors involved and the British Government announced we could have our inquiry and we thought, oh my God, this is it! This is history in the making. The day it was announced we all walked from the Trinity Hotel up the Strand Road together to let the people of Derry know. People in the crowd were saying ‘they’ve got their inquiry! They’ve got it!’" I’ll never forget the feeling and the buzz of that day."
Despite the expansive Bloody Sunday Inquiry that was to span ten years and cost almost £200 million, Geraldine always harboured a fear that her uncle would be used as a scapegoat.
"I was never hopeful," she says. "My mother always said that Gerald would be used as a fall-guy, as did Donncha and Conal McFeely, and they were right. They used him as a scapegoat just like we had always feared."
By the time the Bloody Sunday report was published on 15 June 2010, Mary Doherty was 64 years-old and terminally ill. Geraldine attended the pre-read of the report in her mother’s place, accompanied by Gerald’s best friend, Donncha McFeely. Geraldine was terrified.
"I had gone in with Donncha because my mother just wasn’t strong enough to go," she remembers. "She knew they would use him as a fall-guy. And she was right. It was bad enough the first time with Widgery [the 1972 report], but the second time was just soul-destroying. That day, Saville’s report killed my mother, it just destroyed her. You could literally see the fight had left her."
Geraldine struggles to keep her tears back when recalling how her mother took the dreaded news.
"I looked at Patricia Coyle, the solicitor, and said to her ‘what about the nail-bombs’ and she just said, ‘no, Geraldine - but he has his declaration of innocence.’ I remember saying ‘how am I going to tell my mother this?’ I just didn’t know how I could break that news to her. Then mammy came up in the lift and I’ll never forget the moment when those lift doors opened - she just knew. She said ‘it’s not good’ and I put my arms around her and said, ‘mammy, it’s good and bad. He’s got his declaration of innocence but they left the nail-bombs. She was just heartbroken."
Mary wanted to go home immediately, but first Geraldine had to face the 10,000 strong crowd waiting patiently outside.
"My mother told me to go out and do our part. It wouldn’t have been in our nature to put a dampener on that day or on the other families’ victory. She was so over the moon for the others."
Few can imagine the courage it took for Geraldine to brave those jubilant crowds, but looking back, Geraldine doesn’t feel so brave.
"I was so nervous I froze, but I knew I had to do it. So I went out with all the others and said that Gerald had been declared innocent. It wouldn’t have been fair to mention the nail-bombs and nobody really knew at that stage about Saville’s ruling. We didn’t want to take the shine off so many others, so I said my part - not what I wanted to say in my heart - but at least that he was innocent."
Geraldine and Donncha had prepared an earlier piece. "Our original statement said ‘This report does not say my uncle had nail-bombs only that he might have. The possibility that the nail-bombs were planted could not be eliminated by Saville. What the Saville Inquiry does say is that my uncle was murdered by Soldier G as he was trying to get away to safety from soldiers who had just murdered Jim Wray and William McKinney.’"
However, when she saw the euphoria outside, Geraldine left out any mention of the nail-bombs. It was the right thing to do.
"There was no way we were going to rain on everyone’s parade," she says.
"I was just numb and wanted to get it all over with. I wanted to get my mother home. She did get comfort from Gerald’s declaration of innocence, but heartbroken about the nail-bombs, but she had so much respect for the other families she wouldn’t dream of ruining their day.
"That’s the kind of woman she was. Even when she was diagnosed with cancer she carried on, and I really believe it was the campaign that kept my mother going. She never complained once, she just got on with it. The doctor once told me that they couldn’t understand how my mother was still living, that she should have been dead three years ago, and I just knew it was the thought of Bloody Sunday and getting answers that had kept her going all that time."
‘It destroyed her’
Mary Doherty’s heath declined rapidly after the report was published. "From that day on, you could see her going downhill," Geraldine remembers.
"It just destroyed her and she was gone within five months of the report going out.
"The other families were actually in Westminster when the news came through that my mother had died and it was announced in Parliament that she had passed away. She would have been so honoured that they thought so highly of her to announce it there of all places."
"Just before she died, she said to me ‘Geraldine you keep fighting, you get out there and make sure you get Gerald’s name cleared properly,’ and I promised my mother I would. She would have been so proud to see how many people came to the launch and who still believed in Gerald’s innocence. I’m just glad we have fulfilled our promise to her..."