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Bloody Sunday: ‘The White Handkerchief contained the blood and tears of innocence’

In the first of a series of special reports, Garrett Hargan talks to the director of The White Handkerchief’, about the story behind it, and how the writer of the play will not get to see it on stage

Bishop Edward Daly waving the white handkerchief, flanked by men carrying the lifeless body of 17-year-old Jackie Duddy. Credit: Stanley Matchett

Bloody Sunday victim Jackie Duddy, and Julieann Campbell, award-winning author and poet

Bishop Edward Daly waving the white handkerchief, flanked by men carrying the lifeless body of 17-year-old Jackie Duddy. Credit: Stanley Matchett

Bloody Sunday victim Jackie Duddy, and Julieann Campbell, award-winning author and poet

Bishop Edward Daly waving the white handkerchief, flanked by men carrying the lifeless body of 17-year-old Jackie Duddy. Credit: Stanley Matchett

Garrett Hargan Twitter Email

January 27 2022 07:00 AM

The pinnacle of a life’s work for revered Derry writer Liam Campbell will premiere on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, but sadly he will not bear witness to what is sure to be a deeply moving performance.

In Pictures: Bloody Sunday... images from the Belfast Telegraph archives

Dr Campbell died on December 20 having completed his final play, The White Handkerchief. In it he leaves behind a message of love and hope about a day that shaped his life as a five year old boy, and that of generations in his hometown.

The director of the play, Kieran Griffiths, said Liam was like a brother and they worked side by side on numerous plays and homeless projects. “The reason we became so close is because we share the same mission in life: we are against injustice and have an anti-bullying mindset,” he added.

While working at The Playhouse theatre together in late 2017, it struck Kieran that the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday was fast approaching.

The first image he came upon while researching was that of Bishop Edward Daly, waving a blood-stained white handkerchief, flanked by a group of men carrying the lifeless body of 17-year-old Jackie Duddy.

Kieran recalled: “It was immediate, because Liam was sitting across from me, I said, ‘We should call it The White Handkerchief, because the fabric contained the blood and tears of innocence.’”

Bloody Sunday victim Jackie Duddy, and Julieann Campbell, award-winning author and poet

Footage replayed over the years has focused on the same short scenes of death. Instead of showing the bodies falling, they wanted to “elevate the bodies as a symbol of sacrifice for civil and equal rights.”

Liam painstakingly pored over the details of Bloody Sunday to ensure his words did justice to the memory of those who died and their families. Deciding which individuals to focus on was the most daunting task.

It was often in the early hours of the morning, Kieran said, that people would present themselves to Liam. “This time that person was William McKinney. William was politically astute, he was a civil rights protestor, he had a Cinecam and he was recording events on the day, trying to capture footage and show the brutality.”

Other key figures in the play are Father Daly, and as it was all boys and men who were killed on the day, it was crucial to include a woman’s voice. Peggy Deery was the only woman shot on Bloody Sunday.

Kieran explained: “She was shot on the back of the leg and the Para bore down on top of her and was going to finish her off. The story holds that she said, ‘Please don’t kill me, I’m a widow with 14 children’.”

The most difficult part of 2021 was when the realisation struck that Liam wasn’t going to live long enough to see his words transformed for the stage. Nine days before he passed away both men were still on the phone, “wrestling” through his last work.

While undergoing treatment Liam wrote a comedy and remained upbeat until the end. “In the sense of being a true Derryman, he found humour and light in the darkest of moments,” Kieran said. “The nature and dignity with which he left this world; it was an act of selflessness.”

Liam worked in a theatre, Kieran said, but primarily he was a ‘peace builder’ and had written a 200 page methodology for victims and survivors to use their stories to build peace.

He was a father, husband and grandfather. Running parallel with all of that he was interrogating the events of Bloody Sunday for the play, while going through hospital treatment for a serious illness.

Liam was just five when the Bloody Sunday killings took place. “He always said a generation was impacted in that moment and he was saturated by it. At such a young and impressionable age it seeped into his soul and that became his life’s mission.”

The White Handkerchief is the pinnacle of their aforementioned ‘life’s mission’ and the ultimate story they could tell given who they are and where they’re from.

“It honours the families that fought for justice to allow Liam and I to enjoy the education, freedom and equal rights we had. We wouldn’t be where we are unless that campaign was fought over the last 50 years,” Kieran said.

When Bloody Sunday families attended for a preview of the show each were presented with a white handkerchief: Fr Edward Daly’s tag was embroidered on them and in the centre was the name of their ‘lost one’.

Kieran says that as the performance approaches, it is “the most frightened I’ve ever been in my life”, but he hopes it’s somewhere families can lay their grief down for a night and see the beauty and truth of the play.

The show will be an immersive and tense experience at times with the audience in the middle of the action. As rehearsals take place ahead of the premiere, Liam’s presence is acutely missed.

You can gauge a writer’s heart through their writing, Kieran said, as he quoted Liam’s unforgettable words from his play The Monk, The Bird and The Priest: “It has always been inaction, injustice and the silence of the witness that has allowed malice to overthrow mercy.”

While Liam died in December his voice will be heard again at Derry’s Guidhall.on Sunday.

Bloody Sunday: ‘The White Handkerchief contained the blood and tears of innocence’

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