Two local priests were close by as the first two people were shot on the fringe of the Bogside, the inquiry heard yesterday. Among several witnesses who described the shooting of Damien Don aghy and John Johnston on Bloody Sunday was Mr Michael McIvor, then a 22-year-old curate in the Creggan, who has since left the priesthood.
He told the inquiry he had been arrested four times previously, once when he was asked at a checkpoint to recite the Our Father in Latin, but could not because his training was post-Vatican 11 "and we all went from Latin to English".
At Masses on Bloody Sunday he and his colleagues had given out details of the civil rights march and encouraged people to participate.
Mr McIvor went with the march to William Street, where it stopped. He became aware of soldiers in a burnt-out factory and on the GPO sorting office roof. Youths stoned these soldiers and rubber bullets were fired, one striking him on the leg. Then two shots rang out and he saw that two people close to him had been shot.
He told Mr Christopher Clarke QC, counsel to the tribunal, that a priest in the Penny burn parish, the late Father Tom O'Gara, had said he had been given bona fide guarantees that neither the Provisional nor the Official IRA would become involved in the march.
Father George McLaughlin, who also worked at St Mary's church in the Creggan, said he took part in many civil rights marches. At William Street, he noticed armed soldiers on roofs, pointing rifles towards the marchers. He heard a shot and saw Dam ien Donaghy on the ground nearby. As he went to him there were two more shots and he noticed John Johnston had fallen about eight yards farther away.
Mr William Doherty said in William Street he became aware of rubber bullets fired by soldiers on a nearby building. He bent down to pick up a stone "to throw at them in retaliation". He heard "something whizz past me which could not have been anything except a bullet. I was immediately aware that I had come very close to being shot. I felt terrified and I looked around . . . I saw a young man staggering and falling forwards on to the ground."
A husband and wife, William and Betty Curran, separately described the same incidents in William Street. Ms Curran said she saw a bullet bounce off the ground at the same time as Damien Donaghy fell. She ran into the middle of the road towards soldiers whose heads were peeping out of a derelict building.
Mr Curran said he thought there were two or three shots at this time and that the first one hit Damien Donaghy and others ricocheted off the ground.
The inquiry continues today.