The handkerchief used by the former bishop of Derry, Dr Edward Daly, during Derry’s Bloody Sunday riots thirty seven years ago, has been donated to the Museum of Free Derry. The Duddy family presented the museum with the handkerchief which the bishop used to escort their injured and dying 17-year old son from the gun-fire.
Bishop Daly, then a priest in the city, became famous across the world when the image was captured on television.
He led three men carrying Jackie Duddy to an ambulance and then pushed the handkerchief under the boy’s shirt to stem the bleeding.
The handkerchief later passed to his father Willie Duddy when the hospital returned the dead boy’s belongings.
The fabric still bears a label with Fr. Daly's name: "It was my mother who actually stitched my name onto the hankie because we had a shared laundry in the Cathedral”, said the bishop last week.
“I was told the Duddy family still had the handkerchief at the anniversary Mass a year later, but I never actually saw it again until decades later when it was brought to the Guildhall after I had given evidence to the Saville Inquiry”.
“But I was so emotionally distressed that day I remember little about it."
Dr Daly said he was glad the museum would now have the handkerchief. "It's an emotional subject for me, but I am glad it's here,” he remarked.
“It tells an important part of the story here at the museum alongside so many other important reminders of that day".
Kay Duddy, Jackie's sister, said her father kept the handkerchief until his death in 1985 and since then, she has carried it with her all the time. “It's like a comfort blanket to me," she revealed.
Meanwhile the Saville Report on Bloody Sunday, is due to be published this autumn — more than a decade after the inquiry was announced.
It is due to be delivered to Secretary of State, Mr Shaun Woodward before it is given to the families and made public.
However the families of those killed on Bloody Sunday have begun a legal challenge over the timing of the release of the final report from the Saville Inquiry, maintaining they should be able to read the report at the same time as Mr Woodward.
John Kelly, whose brother Michael died on Bloody Sunday, said both parties should get the report at the same time.
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(Source: CIN)