Bloody Sunday and the Rule of Law in Northern Ireland

Drawing on original research into explosive evidence which had been concealed for twenty-five years, this book offers a devastating critique of the official Widgery Inquiry into the massacre of innocent and unarmed civilians by British soldiers on Bloody Sunday. It exposes the Inquiry as a gross denial of justice and the rule of law. Expert analysis of the subordination of law to security policy in Northern Ireland reveals that the Bloody Sunday experience is an integral part of a sustained pattern. Belated prospects for a restoration of justice and the rule of law are found in the Good Friday Peace Agreement and the unprecedented establishment of a second Tribunal of Inquiry into Bloody Sunday.

DERMOT WALSH was appointed Chair of Law at the University of Limerick in 1996 where he is also Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice. He is a visiting Professor to the University of San Diego's Institute of International and Comparative Law and is a former President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers. He is the author of The Use and Abuse of Emergency Legislation in Northern Ireland (1983) and The Irish Police: A Legal, Constitutional and Administrative Perspective (1998). His report The Bloody Sunday Tribunal of Inquiry: A Resounding Defeat for Truth, Justice and the Rule of Law formed a primary component of the Irish government's Report on Bloody Sunday to the British government which, in turn, was instrumental in persuading the British government to establish the Saville Tribunal of Inquiry into Bloody Sunday in 1998.