The Irish Times - Date: 2nd Feb 02 - Kathryn Holmquist 
" The power of McGovern's drama, was that the power of the image had made many British viewers confront the events of Bloody Sunday for the first time, even if it was 30 years later. In an age when we are servants of the image, enthralled by superficial celebrity, McGovern made the image a servant of truth and justice."

Belfast Telegraph - Date: 17th Jan 02 - Suzanne Rodgers
" 'Sunday' is full of life and humour, drawing the viewer into the everyday life of those who, we know, are heading towards awful tragedy. …
The acting by Ciaran McMenamin as Leo, Eva Birthistle as Maura and Barry Mullan as John is extraordinary - measured, expressive and entirely believable. Some scenes are particularly harrowing… But there are also moments of great humour, and the resilience of the Young family and the community as a whole, is what ultimately shines through.

Derry Journal - Date: 15th Jan 02 - Eamonn Houston 
"If Jimmy McGovern and the team behind 'Sunday' are to be remembered in Derry for one thing, it is that they have weaved together a depiction of innocence that will give Derry's tragedy a universal resonance. …..

Derry's tragedy to all of us who weren't present on the day has been a mosaic of disjointed television footage, foreshortened photographs and countless accounts. Some would argue that it has been muddied further by the sophisticated legal argument in the Saville Inquiry. If ever there was a timely return to basics - the truth that Derry knows - it came last week with drama. ..

It is clear in the film that a large swathe of the young population of Derry, by midnight on January 30, 1972 was unwillingly handed over to hatred. Raw emotion and power is present throughout the film. The people of Derry will be struck by the sense of place in 'Sunday'. The majority of the scenes are shot in familiar territory. The riot in William Street is faithfully recreated as is the iconic imagery of Father Daly and the dying Jackie Duddy."

The Irish News - Date: 12th Jan - Seamus McKinney 
"…McGovern shows the humanity of the victims, their families and the people of Derry. He also shows the trauma and pain of the Bloody Sunday killings. …. Speaking immediately after the press showing, Mr McGovern said there was no excuse for the Bloody Sunday deaths. He said he did not care who fired the first shot. "It is irrelevant to me as a human being and as a dramatist."  He said he did not expect the production to receive "rave reviews" from the English press but he took more satisfaction from the verdict delivered by the Bloody Sunday families. "It feels and sounds like a good requiem for the dead," he said. 

Geraldine Richmond - who witnessed the deaths of Hugh Gilmore and Bernard McGuigan and who was present at yesterday's viewing - thanked Mr McGovern for showing the humanity of the victims and those present on Bloody Sunday. "Now our story is being told," she said.

News Letter - Date: 12th Jan  
"It is gripping viewing, another masterpiece from McGovern, remarkably accurate in capturing the atmosphere, but it is also unashamedly anti-British establishment…."

Derry News - Date: 17th January 02 - Paddy McGuffin
The excellent script, and strong performances throughout help create a tense urgent atmosphere. The intelligent use of camera and sound heighten the ominous mood. This coupled with the fact that the vast majority of the filming took place in Derry guaranteed a degree of authenticity seldom seen in such productions. …
Never overtly graphic, 'Sunday' still manages to disturb without glamorising the death and destruction, which is portrayed with gritty realism.

Irish News - Date: 11th Jan 02 - Dennis Bradley
" Jimmy McGovern ….is one of the greats of drama and dramadocumentary writing. He knows the human heart. He explores evil and love with equal assurance.  Leo Young carrying the coffin of his brother to place it alongside 12 others in a church, his heart breaking in equal measure from tenderness and remorse is one such moment. Equally great is McGovern's insight into the human impulse to retreat to its own protective shell in moments of fear or hurt or anger. This can manifest itself in terms of country, or people, or prejudice. McGovern captures this incredibly well in a scene which inter-cuts General Ford, the most senior officer there that day, receiving a declaration from the Queen, and a group of young Derry men joining by way of oath, the IRA."

Irish News - Date: 28th Jan 02 -  Roddy McGregor
"Regarded among the best contemporary British screenwriters, his script pulls no punches about where responsibility for the victim's deaths lie. …

What results is a powerful and chilling portrayal of what it must have been like in Derry's Bogside on January 30 1972 and in the weeks leading up to the march."

Derry Journal - Date: 22nd Jan 02 
"The second of the two Bloody Sunday movies, and according to many, the superior of the two, has been penned by 'Cracker' writer Jimmy McGovern. Filmed mostly on location in Derry, using many local actors, this gripping drama captures the horror and the humanity of this city's darkest day. For those of you who were there, it is a difficult action replay of a frightening , devastating time for this city. For those of us who were not there it is an education in itself, and that we can recognise people and places from our town makes this an even more emotional experience. It is, without question, extremely difficult to watch in places; the scenes in St Mary's Chapel would bring tears from a stone. Ultimately however, it is a powerful film that should not be missed by anyone in this city, or country, regardless of creed." 

Sunday Tribune - Date: 3rd Feb 02 - Paddy Murray 
"It would have taken a very hard heart indeed not to be moved by Jimmy McGovern's Bloody Sunday film 'Sunday'. There were moments in it of utter despair, utter savagery, sheer bravery and blatant disregard for humanity. …

From the point of view of a story well told, superb performances from actors and actresses and achieving the shocking effects desired, it was a complete success."

The Star - Date: 28th Jan 02 - Fionnuala O'Leary
"…this superb piece of film is well worth watching."

Evening Herald - Date: 28th Jan 02 - Linda Higgins
"This drama deserves to be viewed.  It's one of the most memorable and powerful pieces of television you're likely to see all year.

McGovern's brilliantly scripted piece concentrates on the run-up to the civil rights march that went so terribly wrong, and the controversial inquiry afterwards.  Christopher Eccleston is superb, as always, as the unlikeable General Ford, while the fine ensemble cast also includes Brid Brennan and Ciaran McMenamin."

Sunday Business Post - Date: 3rd Feb 02 - Emmanuel Kehoe
" In 'Sunday': The Debate which was screened after the film 'Sunday' (Channel 4) (Eamonn) McCann made clear he believes the British military were so appalled by the very idea of Free Derry that they decided to employ the IS (internal security) methods that had temporarily shored up the ramparts of empire a few years before. This essentially was a policy of 'shoot the ringleaders'. 

In 'Sunday', written by Jimmy McGovern, General Ford (Christopher Eccleston), who was in command in Derry on Bloody Sunday, is shown recording a memo, "I'm coming to the conclusion," he says, "that the only way to restore law and order is to shoot selected ringleaders of the Derry young hooligans after clear warnings have been given…"
I might have been shocked at this kind of blunt attitude if I hadn't myself been trained to 'shoot the ringleaders' too. Someone, somewhere in late 1968 or early 1969 decided to train the Dublin FCA unit, to which I belonged, in riot drill. 
It is like something out of The Virgin Soldiers, with a platoon, bayonets fixed, strung out in two lines acrsoss the square in Griffith Barracks. The orders where, "Front rank, Man in white shirt. One round. Fire." The medicine was to be repeated until the rioters took to their heals. Which would have been pretty soon.
It was never explained why we should be getting this training, but it was precisely the IS methods Ford was considering. Were regular army units being trained in the same tactics? Was the government expecting serious civil unrest?
The film uncompromisingly took sides: ordinary decent people cut down by the brutal forces of the state. Afterwards the paras whoop it up over beers."

Hotpress - Date: 30th Jan 02 - Eamonn McCann
" The line of attack is that the (film is) one-sided, depicting the paras as murderers and all the dead and wounded as innocent victims. What's more, it's said, there's an imbalance between the continuing concentration on Bloody Sunday and the relative lack of interest in other Northern Ireland atrocities, in some of which just as many died.

What drew… (Jimmy McGovern to write 'Sunday') was precisely the things which make Bloody Sunday different, and which gave the day pivotal significance in the politics of Britain and Ireland.

When the paras killed 13 people in the Bogside because they'd stood up and demanded equality, many people, particularly young people in Catholic working-class communities across the North, saw themselves facing a choice between giving up the fight for equal rights, or getting armed and fighting back. (Sunday).. accurately.. (depicts) the mushroom growth of the IRA beginning before the stench of cordite had cleared from Rossville Street. 

The killings hadn't come about by accident or misunderstanding or because psyched-up soldiers ran amok. The British Commander of Land Forces in the North, Robert Ford, in a memo dictated three weeks before the event, on January 7th , put his intensions on record: "I am coming to the conclusion that we must shoot selected ring leaders of the Bogside young hooligans." Ford's preferred action, and his role on the ground urging the paras to, "Go on… go and get them", is, again, portrayed accurately… Far from pre-judging the truth, these sequences are meticulously built around established fact. ……

he depiction of Barney McGuigan inching out from cover waving a white hankerchief towards Paddy Doherty bleeding his last in the shadow of the Rossville Flats and crying, "I don't want to die on my own," and a para from across the street shooting him in the back of the scull, is exactly as scores watched it happen. ….

The reason the issue has remained raw for 30 years is not that the basic facts are elusive but that they are obvious. Hostility to the (film) doesn't arise from concern for the truth but from an unreadiness to acknowledge the truth. …

McGovern shows the source of the evil which burst on the Bogside located in the conscious intentions of the political, military and legal elite…..
Throughout he looks at the unfolding horror through the families' eyes. The portraits are subtly coloured and precisely delineated. You get to know the Youngs the way you know people you call in on without knocking the door. Bríd Brennan, as John Young's mother, gives a ferociously understated, shattering performance. She forgives the soldier who has killed her son, "not for his sake, but for the sake of the sons I have left." 

The Derry Journal - Date: 15th Jan 02 
" Of the two films, I found Jimmy McGovern's 'Sunday' by far the more satisfactory. …. (It) …captured the genuine naivety and good humour of many of the youngsters who took part in the ill-fated march."