The Echoes of Ireland’s Bloody Sunday in Renee Good’s Murder

Like Renee Good’s murder in Minnesota, the Bloody Sunday massacre in Ireland was notable for both the blatancy of the crime, carried out in broad daylight, and the audacity of the lies pumped out from the highest levels of the state.

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A makeshift memorial honoring Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 11, 2026. (Kerem Yucel / AFP via Getty Images)


Watching the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis and the political developments that followed, it was impossible not to be reminded of the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry. The British Army killed thirteen civilians on that day in 1972; a fourteenth victim later died of his wounds. We are still living with the consequences of the massacre.

The first parallel is the transparency of the crime, which in both cases was carried out in broad daylight. It wasn’t so easy to record events on a camera at the time of Bloody Sunday, but there were thousands of eyewitnesses in Derry that day, including representatives of the international media.

The second parallel concerns the audacity of the lies pumped out from the highest levels of the state. Trump administration officials pretended to believe that Good’s killer acted in self-defense, fearing for his life, just as British government ministers pretended to believe that the paratroopers had only pulled the trigger after coming under intense fire.

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