About

The Bloody Sunday Trust was established in 1997 with the twin aims of supporting the Bloody Sunday families and others through the course of the Inquiry, and of preserving the history of the period that led to Bloody Sunday.
It is a registered charity which is managed on a not for private profit basis by a group of voluntary directors.

The Trust managestwo key projects: The Museum of Free Derry and the Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding Project (generally referred to as the ‘Derry Model’). Between the two projects the Trust employs fourteen paid staff and three long-term volunteers.

The Museum of Free Derry was openedin 2007 to tell the story of what happened in this city during the period 1968 – 1972, popularly known as ‘Free Derry’, including the civil rights era, Battle of the Bogside, Internment, Bloody Sunday and Operation Motorman.

The museum was set up to tell the story of how a largely working-class community rose up against the years of oppression it had endured, of how the peaceful civil rights movement was met with violence, and the descent into conflict which led to Bloody Sunday, the day when the British Army committed mass murder on the streets of the Bogside. The museum was designed as a public space where the concept of Free Derry could be explored in both historic and contemporary contexts by a wide audience of local, national and international visitors.

The Museum of Free Derry has become one of the most popular heritage attractions in the region, attracting tens of thousands of visitors every year from all over the world.The original version of MoFD attracted over 160,000 visitors during its eight years of operation, and the new museum has hosted the same number again since its re-opening in February 2017.

The Museum has already won two awards in the short history of the new building, the CEF award for a social/community building in 2017, and the Tourism NI award for Authentic Visitor Experience in 2018, and is fully accredited under the Museums Standards Programme for Ireland.

The Trust and Museum also organise the annual Bloody Sunday commemoration supported by the families, and a series of events throughout the year with on local and international human rights issues.

The Museum is wholly owned by the Bloody Sunday Trust, and is independent of any statutory bodies, funders or political parties.

Heritage

The conflict related collection held by MoFD is currently circa 20,000 physical items, many of them of major historical importance. The majority of the collection is documentary, with a smaller percentage of physical artefacts.

Most of the documentary archive is owned by the museum, with the remainder on loan. The opposite is the case with the artefacts, with most on long-term loan. Many of the artefacts in our collection are first generation family possessions with extreme personal value, in many cases being personal items belonging to family members killed during the conflict. Due to this the owners, while willing to have their items on display in the museum or looked after in our archive, are unwilling to sign over permanent title to these items.

Virtually all of the collection has come from donations from members of the local community.

The main focus of the museum’s collection is the Free Derry period, but there are also significant collections relating to other areas of the conflict, particularly in our posters collection which contains a large prison protests and hunger strikes section and a number of general republican-themed items.

MoFD also has access to a large digital collection containing tens of thousands of scanned photographs, posters etc. covering the entirety of the conflict and a range of viewpoints.

Access to the collection is generally through the Museum of Free Derry, with our main artefacts and documents on permanent display for museum visitors. Visitors come from all over the world, and include a significant number of school, university and community groups. The museum also regularly curates temporary exhibitions which go beyond the core theme of Free Derry.

Access to our digital collection is available in a dedicated space within the museum, where visitors can browse upwards of 40,000 digital files on computer. This is available during museum opening hours. Access to the physical archive is more restricted and is only available in limited circumstances.