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Manus Deery (15) was shot dead by British soldiers in May, and James Casey (57) in July. IRA volunteer Gerald Doherty (16) died in a shooting accident in February, and volunteers Colm Keenan (19), Eugene McGillan (18) and John Starrs (19) were killed by the British Army in March and May.

On Christmas Day 1971, People’s Democracy and Sinn Fein broke the ban on marches. On 2 January NICRA announced it would follow suit. The ‘illegal’ marches compounded establishment rage.

In ‘Operation Demetrius’ (the British Army name for the internment arrest operation) in the early hours of 9 August, soldiers and police men smashed into homes and arrested 342 men across the north.

1971 saw a steady escalation in violence across the north. The first British soldier to die in Derry, William Joliffe, perished in a petrol bombing at Westland Street on 1 March.

In June 1970, three IRA members, members, Thomas McCool (40), Joseph Coyle (40) and Thomas Carlin (55), together with two of McCool’s daughters, Bernadette (9) and Carol (4), were killed in a premature explosion in Creggan.

The appearance of British troops in Derry on 14 August was viewed as a victory over the police and unionism.

Hundreds of young defenders, with the active backing of the entire community, secured the perimeter of the area and the commanding heights of the roof of the Rossville Flats.

In Belfast, a second police/loyalist attack on Unity Flats on 2 August intensified apprehension in Derry.

The barricades around Free Derry were taken down within a week, but the determination of the people remained.

The police assault on the march splashed the truth of unionist rule onto television screens across the world.