Pictured at the unveiling Lord Mayor of Dublin and Michael Nelson, nephew of Joseph Traynor, one of those killed on Bloody Sunday. Image Credit Fennell Photography
Bloody Sunday Bridge has been officially named by Lord Mayor of Dublin Daithí de Róiste at a Dublin City Council ceremony yesterday November 20th.
Located in the shadow of Croke Park on Russell Street, this was the site of extreme bloodshed in the midst of the War of Independence on Sunday 21st November 1920.
The Lord Mayor Daithí de Róiste also unveiled a Dublin City Council commemorative plaque outside 69 Blessington Street, the home of ten year old Jerome O’Leary, the youngest of the three children killed in the shooting.
Bloody Sunday 1921, began with the killing by Michael Collins’s ‘The Squad’ of fourteen suspected British intelligence officers. By late afternoon, fourteen innocent civilians, including three children, lay dead or dying, shot by Crown forces from the bridge over the Royal Canal at Russell Street as a football match took place in Croke Park. Tipperary player Michael Hogan from Grangemockler was among the people killed. The day of bloodshed ended with the killings in Dublin Castle of Conor Clune and Dublin brigade IRA officers Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy.
The decision to name Bloody Sunday Bridge and to erect the plaque in Blessington Street was made by the Dublin City Council Commemorations & Naming Committee.
