The day after the Bloody Sunday massacre, Bernadette Devlin attempted to interrupt the Home Secretary Reginald Maudling in the House of Commons, after he claimed that the army had ‘returned fire’ against those who were ‘attacking them with firearms and with bombs’. When the Speaker prevented her from doing so, she ran down the gangway shouting, ‘If I am not allowed to inform the House of what I know, I’ll inform Mr Maudling of what I feel.’ She launched herself at him and hit him three times in the face.5 The moment was eloquent: if what was known could not be said, what was felt could be
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