Bloody Sunday

‘Bloody Sunday: The nun, the Defiance Campaign and South Africa’s secret massacre’’ is about the life, death and memorialisation of Irish nun and medical doctor Sister Aidan Quinlan who was murdered in South Africa on 9 November 1952 by residents of the black township where she lived and worked. Resonating with the tragic Bloody Sundays in Irish history, the book is also about the hundreds of other people who were killed the same day. One other white person, an Afrikaner insurance salesman, was beaten to death by an angry crowd. The rest were killed by police gunshot or bayonet. The police massacre was covered up, with bodies buried secretly but it is believed to be the worst in the apartheid era.

With the remarkable Sister Aidan as the central thread, Mignonne Breier traces the dreadful consequences of apartheid rule in the coastal town of East London and the complex influences – from African medicine practices to Roman Catholic sacraments – that led to a frenzy of crowd insanity and police brutality on 9 November 1952. The events have left a lasting but little-known stain on South African history.

The book is about a hidden chapter in South Africa’s past but has prophetic relevance for authoritarian governments everywhere today, for liberation leaders who lose touch with the young and the poor as they squabble for power and for those who seek to do good in such contexts.