Niff Riff

This day in 1887 was known as London`s Bloody Sunday. During a turbulent, freezing November there is unrest among the Irish immigrants living in England's capital. William O’Brien, an MP, and member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, recently lead a popular rent strike in Mitchelstown, Cork. The strikers also supported the Home Rule Movement. O`Brien was very publically arrested, using trumped up charges designed to prevent dissent in the Empire`s most problematic colony. Several strikers were also injured and arrested. The fact the "rabble-rouser" was also a Member of Parliament was quite the bloody nose for the British government. The Irish National League, and a sympathetic influential left-wing Social Democratic Federation (SDF), decide to march on Trafalgar Square in peaceful protest. They demand the release of William O’Brien. They are also protesting about British abuses in Ireland, where crippling artificial levels of unemployment have been created, crushing the country's economy and starving its people. Many of the protestors are also supporters of the Home Rule Movement. They also protested the "Coercion Acts". These were an unabashed abuse of human rights by the British Conservative government in Ireland. Basically whenever there was perceived unrest in an Irish city or town Coercion Acts allowed for the suspension of civil rights. Think of it as a xenophobic Martial Law that only applied to the indigenous population. The 13th of November sees over 10,000 peaceful protestors marching on Trafalgar Square. The mood is positive and celebratory with famous supporters like playwright George Bernard Shaw present. Musicians play traditional Irish instruments, and there is chanting and singing. Joining and adjacent to the protestors in the busy metropolitan area were some tens of thousands of non-involved spectators. The head of the London Metropolitan Police, Sir Charles Warren, does not see the ‘organised procession" as a legitimate civil meeting. He sees savage Paddies who need to be put in their place. The violence of his ruthless disproportionate response would result in this day being called London's Bloody Sunday. In a scene of barbarism characteristic of the British Empire's brutality against its unwilling subjects throughout the world, the police mercilessly attacked the unarmed crowd. A massive armed force of 2,000 Metropolitan Police, including horse-mounted divisions, and 500 British army soldiers engaged the crowd. Men, women, and children were mowed down by charging horses. Infantry charged in with bayonets fixed. Whilst the mounted squads plowed through the people the ground-level police lashed out at the crowd in a frenzy of truncheons, fists, and even swords. A small percentage of the protestors were "armed with iron bars, knives, pokers and gas pipes". The ad-hoc nature of the weapons also points to the fact many were improvised in self-defense and not actually brought to the demonstration. When the offensive started there was little room for the protestors to retreat or the opportunity to surrender. The savagery left witnesses speechless, as the smell of blood and groans of agony filled the wintry air. Three people died at the scene. Countless others were seriously hurt, and deaths occurred later as a result of those injuries. It's a miracle there weren't more murdered. There were 400 arrests and 75 persons were badly injured, including police officers. The next Sunday, there was another demonstration in response to the police and army brutality. This fact alone shows how legitimately enraged the public was. Doubtless, police and soldiers were injured. However, despite the London authorities attempting to characterise the government's brutal response as measured and the protesters as rioters, contemporary reports even from unsympathetic sources tell a different story.