Anti Internment rally held at Free Derry Corner on 54th anniversary of introduction

Derry’s Bloody Sunday March Committee (BSMC) has marked the 54th anniversary of the introduction of internment without trial in the North by the British Government.

The Anti Internment rally was held at Free Derry Wall in the Bogside on Saturday afternoon.

Chairing the event, former BSMC chairperson Kate Nash, began by paying tribute to the Ballymurphy families.

“On this same anniversary, August 9, the shooting began from soldiers on roof tops, and continued on the 10th and the 11th in Ballymurphy,” she said.

“We send our love and solidarity to the families of Ballymurphy who support us every single year, support us all the time. We send our good wishes and our thoughts are with you today. There is plenty of sadness I’m sure,” added Ms Nash. 

Bloody Sunday March Committee (@BloodySunday50) Anti Internment Rally - @DerryNow digital report thread.

The event marked the 54th Anniversary of the introduction of internment without trial in the North by the British Government.

It was held at Free Derry Wall in the Bogside… pic.twitter.com/UfBimMQwLa

— Catherine McGinty (@CathMcGin_Tea) August 10, 2025

She added: “When Internment was reintroduced on August 9, 1971, it laid bare the anti-democratic nature of the northern state and the colonial attitude of the British Government in Ireland.

“1,800 people were seized from their families, tortured, brutalised and thrown into jail, without legal recourse, as the British colonial power tried their damndest to crush a risen people. Guess what? They failed. 

“Instead of breaking the back of our liberation struggle, they strengthened the resolve of the people of Ireland to fight back against the injustice they faced. 

“In their own back yard, the scrutiny was greater; their crimes in the colonies were easier to implement and far away enough to be forgotten about. They murdered 50,000 in their concentration camps in South Africa. The Kikuyu genocide in Kenya took place in the 1950s, a decade after the Holocaust and the West’s promise to never again allow the destruction of entire peoples. It saw virtually the entire population of 1.5 million Kikuyu locked up in concentration camps, where they were starved, beaten and tortured to death by the tens of thousands, at the hands of the British,” said Ms Nash.

She added: “All across the bloody empire they stole the freedom of those who stood up to their imperial might. The Mother of all Parliaments sent its thugs in uniforms to loot the world and imprison native populations. 

“They were seasoned professionals by the time it came to 1971 in the North of Ireland. The meeting today is an important event to make sure that this history is never forgotten. Today we remember all those who have been imprisoned, tortured and murdered by the British state,” said Kate Nash.

First speaker Deaglán Donnelly, read a statement on behalf of his father Michael Donnelly - one of the ‘Hooded Men’ - who was present at the rally.

He said: “On the morning of August 9, 1971, I was dragged from my family, from my wife and my infant son. I was taken to Sea Eagle Brit army barracks now Ebrington Square, which has been re-branded as if it was never a site of brutal colonialist violence.

“This event is very important, I believe, because it is about the remembering of what was done because they want to erase our memory and erase us and they will never do it. 

“At that site, I witnessed immediately my fellow prisoners who became internees being brutally beaten by British army troops with clubs and with rifle butts. One prisoner, Mr Barney Gilmore objected to the violence and he was shot in the stomach and never recovered from his injuries and died prematurely some years later. 

“I was disappeared and tortured for nine days at Ballykelly British Army base - the centre for the operations of the SAS and general state terrorism, along with nine other internees. We were tortured by the SAS and by the RUC Special Branch. We were subjected to these nine days of total immersive violence at the hands of the British occupation forces. Techniques that were also used against prisoners during the mass internment in Kenya, which became known as Britain's outdoor gulag,” said Deaglán Donnelly.

He added: “We were hooded for nine days. We were suffocated. We were severely beaten. We were water boarded. We were drugged. We were forced into stress positions, beaten when we wouldn’t maintain the stress positions or fell and we were handcuffed so tight that I lost the feeling n my hands for months afterwards.

IN PICTURES: Anti-Internment Protest at Free Derry Corner

The event marked over 50 years since internment without trial was first introduced in 1971

Family planning book to mark 50th anniversary of Derry’s Jim Moyne

Derry man and IRA volunteer, Jim Moyne, was 29 years-old when he died whilst being interned in the early hours of January 13, 1975

“I was also interrogated and thrown from a helicopter when I refused to talk. I then was interned from August 9, 1971 until December 31, 1974 - no charge, no trial, no accusation. 

“Were it not for the brave resistance of the people across the Six Occupied Counties and of the international outrage they generated and secured and maintained, we would have been murdered in British custody.

“The Brits were found guilty of torture at the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in 1974, while I was, ironically, still interned. This was downgraded then to inhuman and degrading treatment on appeal in 1976. The second ruling has since then sanitised, legalised and normalised torture and internment. It is the reason why today there is no internationally recognised definition of this state violence,” said Mr Donnelly.

The Anti Internment rally was also addressed by Liam O’Donnell a representative of the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association, and Rónán Moyne who spoke about his uncle, internee Jim Moyne (29) who died of an asthmatic attack whilst being interned in the cages of Long Kesh.