February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The event will commemorate the 1972 Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry which resulted in the death of 13 unarmed marchers that day and a fourteenth some weeks later as a result of wounds sustained in the tragedy.
The march steps off promptly at 12:30 p.m. from 58th Street and 4th Avenue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and proceeds to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica, 60th Street and 5th Avenue for a 1 p.m. Mass. A reception will be held later at the Irish Haven, 5721 4th Avenue.
According to the association, participants will remember all those lost in the Troubles, pray for a lasting peace, celebrate recent positive developments including restoration of the power-sharing government in Belfast, and the steps to establish a non-sectarian police force.
“They will renew their call for justice for the Bloody Sunday victims and the families that survive them,” the association said in a statement.
The Bay Ridge commemoration has been held each year since 1972.
“We will march and pray until justice is finally done for those innocents murdered in 1972,” said Mary Nolan, director of the organizing committee.
“Reconciling the worst injustices committed by Britain during the Troubles is necessary to build a future based on equality, justice and mutual respect,” she said.
Nolan can be contacted at (718)833-3405. Martin Brennan, another committee member, can be reached at brennanmartin@hotmail.com.