(Friday, February 25, 1972) — 27 days after British paratroopers shot dead thirteen Catholics after a civil rights demonstration in Londonderry, a massacre known as Bloody Sunday, ex-Beatle Paul McCartney’s new group Wings released the single “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” today in Britain (Feb. 28, 1972 in the U.S.).

The song was the band’s first recording to include Northern Irish guitarist Henry McCullough, who had joined the group on Jan. 24, 1972.

With strong familial connections to Ireland on his late mother’s side, McCartney was appalled at Britain’s role in Bloody Sunday.

According to his biographer Tom Doyle, McCartney was inspired also by being around fellow ex-Beatle John Lennon and the vibrant and politically radical mood of the Greenwich Village neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, where Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, were living at the time.

McCartney later recalled: “I wasn’t really into protest songs – John had done that – but this time I felt that I had to write something, to use my art to protest.”

This song was one of few McCartney released with Wings to be banned by the BBC.

Lennon’s 1972 album Some Time in New York City would feature a song entitled “Sunday Bloody Sunday” (recorded Feb. 12, 1972) inspired by the incident, as well as the song “The Luck of the Irish,” which dealt more with the Irish conflict in general.

Lennon, who was of Irish descent, also spoke at a protest in New York in support of the victims and families of Bloody Sunday.