A former bar manager told yesterday how his premises was used to spread word of an IRA order that guns were to be kept away from the Civil Rights march on Bloody Sunday.
Mr Charles Coyle said he was manager of the Pop Inn pub on Bishop Street, which at that time was frequented by Provisional IRA members. He was privy to a lot of information about the local political situation, and it was made known through the grapevine that the IRA would be stood down on the day of the march in Derry, January 30th, 1972.
The day before the march, an IRA man whom he knew from the Brandywell came into the bar seeking certain people. He had been ordered by local IRA leaders to contact all IRA members in his area and get them to hand their weapons in before Sunday, or not to be armed on the day.
"This chap was panicking because he was unable to get in touch with one or two hotheads who were lying low," said Mr Coyle. "He was asking around in the Pop Inn if anyone had seen them, but in the end he was able to contact these men." The witness said that the same man came back in that evening "and his job was done, he was relaxed. . .I asked him had he seen everybody and he just said, 'Everything's all right'."
At the request of Mr Christopher Clarke QC, counsel to the tribunal, the witness agreed to write down the name of this man and hand it in to the tribunal.
Replying to Mr Edwin Glasgow QC, for a number of soldiers, Mr Coyle agreed that he did not know of any orders that were given as far as the Official IRA was concerned.
Another witness, Mr Patrick Heaney, described how he watched from a window in the Bogside as the late Mr Alexander Nash went out to the rubble barricade in Rossville Street to help his son, William, who was lying on the ground there, fatally wounded.
"He came out. . .with both hands in the air whilst occasionally pointing at something on the ground," said the witness. "I could not see anything on the ground near the barricade, but I then watched as he bent down and cradled a body in his arms.
"He began waving towards the army, who were further north up Rossville Street, and seemed to be indicating that they should come in to lift the wounded person." Mr Heaney said he then saw a bullet bounce upwards off a stone on the barricade just in front of Mr Nash, and he was certain it was fired by a soldier who was in an elevated position across Rossville Street.
He said a Saracen armoured personnel carrier then came through the barricade, and soldiers got out. Mr Nash was sitting on the ground with the body in his arms, "and they took it off him and threw it in (to the Saracen)."
Mr Hugh Foy described how two soldiers tried to get into Block 1 of Rossville Flats, but were unable to do so as there were so many people standing behind the door holding it shut.
The inquiry continues today.