Derry's Harry Duffy killed by British soldier firing plastic bullets

Harry Duffy (44), affectionately known as Harry ‘Dundalk’ after his hometown, was shot and killed by a soldier of the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment near the junction of Derry’s Little James Street and Sackville Street.

Harry was murdered on May 22, 1981, the same night Derry Hunger Striker, Patsy O’Hara died.

Speaking to Derry Now following Saturday’s  screening of ‘British Legal Impunity: The stories of women, men and children killed by the British army and RUC’, Harry’s daughter, Jennifer Duffy, said his death “split all of our family up”.

Families bereaved by state forces in powerful film project

'British Legal Impunity: The stories of women, men and children killed by the British army and RUC’ launched by Pat Finucane Centre

There were seven children in the Duffy family, which lived in Creggan’s Benevenagh Gardens: Patrick, who got married shortly after his father’s death, Teresa, Jennifer, Hughie, Linda and twins, Peter and Ceilia. Their mother, Bridie, had died of a massive heart attack in 1977, “only a week past her 36th birthday”.

Jennifer said: “We went out to live with an uncle for a while and that didn’t work out and we were put into Termonbacca and Nazareth House homes, where we were abused.”

Jennifer narrated Harry’s film, in which she spoke about how close the Duffy’s were as a family. 

“I spoke about what my father did for us when we were growing up; about him being a single parent and the things he did for us,” she said.

“He did so much to bring in a couple of bob and look after us. He missed my mother so much and he held the family together when she died. He also did so much for older people or people living on their own around Creggan.

“People used to pay him to do odd jobs. If there was an elderly person or someone who couldn’t afford it, he would have done them for free, or if somebody could not afford to get their house painted or papered, he would not have charged them much. He would have helped out a lot of people. 

“He was a good family man. Whenever he was taking us out for a picnic or out to the reservoir or up to play games up on the pitches, half of the Creggan kids would have followed him. He would have given them some of our picnic, whatever sandwiches he’d have made, he would have given them to the kids as well.”

Jennifer said the Duffy family had received official papers regarding their father’s death, on condition they did not share them with anyone.

She added: “However, there are so many mistakes in them. There were two different people doing the autopsy and there were different people taking statements. In the first part of the papers, all of the soldiers who were giving statements, all gave the same statement, word for word.

“And, in the second set of papers, they were saying there were interviews with another set of soldiers, and it was also all word for word the same in their statements.

“You could tell they were told what to say because they were all exactly the same and half of the information was blacked out.

“It took ten years for the papers to come to us. The Pat Finucane Centre is dealing with our case. We are still waiting for the truth.”

Jennifer said when she saw her father’s Pat Finucane Centre film in Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin on Saturday, her heart was breaking.

“Every time it comes up, it brings back those feelings of the night my Da was shot. It puts me right back there again,” she said.

“I don’t know if I am going to see justice for my Da in my lifetime. I don’t know the answers to give my kids. Even when I take my wee granddaughter to the grave, because my eldest son takes me down to the cemetery all the time, on their birthdays and anniversaries, I don’t know what to tell her.

“My daughter is the person who comes with me to some of the meetings I have to go to about  my daddy.  And my granddaughter will ask me, ‘Why did they kill him granny?’ My kids asked me the same question throughout their childhoods, whenever I was going to the cemetery.

“And, I haven’t  got the answers and nobody else has the answers to why these soldiers actually turned around and killed people. What makes them kill people, especially children? People who are defenceless.

“My father was down the town looking for me that night and he was not rioting. He was amongst the crowd so I don’t know why they actually shot him. They said he had petrol on his clothes but he fell on the ground when he was shot, where there petrol bombs smashed all over the place. They didn’t say he had petrol on his hands. It was not on his hands.”

Clearly moved, Jennifer said Harry should have been playing the games with his grandchildren that he played with his own children.

“They should have known him. They would have loved him,” she said. “His death took all that away from them, as well as from us. I don’t think I would have been in London living for 28 years, I don’t think I would have had the bad life that I had, if it hadn’t been for my father’s death.”

Jennifer said she would like to see the truth about her father’s death coming out.

“I would like this to end and people to feel a wee bit of release and relief from the torment they are going through and something being done about it,” she said.

“I don’t expect anyone to be punished because that is not the way the British Government works but I would expect our questions to be answered, so at least I can tell my kids and grandkids something.

“I wish the British Government would, at least, hold its hands up and say, “We are sorry about what we did to your father and we are sorry what we did to the people in your country’.

“They are admitting things to certain people, why not us all? I would say to them, ‘We know you have done it, so why not admit it?’ Instead they just stopped the Historical Enquiry Team investigation quite abruptly and we still do not know why.”