Ivan Cooper Ivan Cooper Ivan Averill Cooper (born January 1944) is a former politician from Northern Ireland who was a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and a founding member of the SDLP. He is best known for leading an anti-internment march which developed into the Bloody Sunday massacre on 30 January 1972, in Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Cooper was born to a working-class Protestant family in Killaloo, County Londonderry, and later moved to the "Bogside" area of Derry city. He was briefly a member of the Claudy Young Unionist Association until April 1965 when he joined the Northern Ireland
Bogside for both wings of the IRA in the city. After Operation Motorman and the end of Free Derry and other no-go areas in Northern Ireland, the Bogside along with the majority of the city experienced frequent street riots and sectarian conflict lasting all the way to the early 1990s. In 1974, the Official IRA declared an end to their armed campaign, and with volunteers on the ground already mad about the ceasefire in mid 1972, that crossed the line to hardliners. In result, Seamus Costello and other socialist militants formed the Irish Republican Socialist Movement. This new movement included the