poet James Simmons took up the challenge of making ballads about the unmartyred dead. Ten days after Bloody Friday, the IRA systematically car-bombed the peaceful and religiously mixed village of Claudy in Co. Derry, setting three devices, so that people fleeing from one explosion would move towards the next. Intelligence at the time suggested that the attack had been directed by a Catholic priest, James Chesney, who was believed to be quartermaster of the South Derry IRA.24 Nine ordinary civilians were massacred, including nine-year-old Kathryn Eakin, who was cleaning the front windows of her
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