That afternoon, a combined police and military force, with orders to carry out a search operation, descended on Croke Park, where a Gaelic football game between Tipperary and Dublin was taking place. What unfolded there was a massacre that changed Irish history.
Ninety seconds of shooting claimed 14 lives. For nearly a century, the full story of what happened on Bloody Sunday was locked away; the story of the Croke Park victims was lost. This documentary, based on the award-winning book, ‘The Bloodied Field’, by Michael Foley, lifts the veil on that story, recounting the events of one of the darkest days of the Irish War of Independence from the perspective of those who participated and perished in its horror.
Featuring contributions from family members of those who died on the field, as well as leading historians and academics, this programme recounts the dramatic events of a vicious day, and places them within a wider context of national identity and cultural history. It also explores our relationship to myth, collective memory and commemoration.
Broadcast on the week when the centenary of Bloody Sunday will be marked at Croke Park and elsewhere, the documentary brings to life one fateful day during a complex tit-for-tat war in which spies, informers and agents were commonplace.
Directed and produced by IFTA nominated filmmakers, Keith Walsh and Jill Beardsworth of Twopair Films.
Bloody Sunday, 1920 will be broadcast on 16th November 2020 at 9.35pm