Bloody Sunday - Peter McDonald

4 February 2012

As an exploration of issues around truth, justice, forgiveness and the human spirit cliftondiocese.com brings you a fascinating and insightful podcast series featuring challenging and dramatic interviews with people whose lives were marked by Bloody Sunday. Our series began on the 40th anniversary of that day in Derry (30 January). Our sixth episode features Peter McDonald. Aged 11, he saw the coffins lined up. He became an IRA activist. Today, he’s a community development worker.

Cathedral parishioner and internationally award-winning radio and TV producer Mary Colwell has been to Derry to speak exclusively with 10 people - all with remarkable connections to the events that took place 40 years ago.

Mary’s series was made with production company CTVC for ‘The Fifth Column’ website. ‘The Fifth Column’ tells stories, discuses issues and raises controversies in public consciousness. It concentrates on areas of life that deserve more, sometimes deeper, investigation.

Along with Mary, contributors to the website include Michael Buerk, chair of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Moral Maze’; Edward Stourton, the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Sunday’ programme; and Emma Barnett digital editor of ‘The Telegraph’.

Mary’s series also featured on ‘Sunday Starts’ on BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Somerset. You can hear Mary 1 hour and 38 minutes into the programme. Mary was also part of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Sunday’ programme. You can hear Mary 11 minutes into the programme.

You can hear today's podcast with Peter McDonald in the multimedia panel on the right.

Yesterday's episode is still online.

In a podcast before we started the series Mary talked about the making of the series and what she discovered about truth, justice, forgiveness and the human spirit as she spoke with people who experienced Bloody Sunday firsthand.

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry chaired by Lord Saville was set up in to establish a definitive version of the events in Derry on Sunday 30 January 1972. The inquiry reported on 15 June 2010.