Raymond McClean


Dr. Raymond McClean was an Irish nationalist politician and physician.
He studied at the Royal College of Surgeons' Medical School, where he qualified as a medical doctor, before joining the Royal Air Force. He then worked as a general practitioner in Derry, also acting as club doctor to Derry City F.C. and local amateur boxing clubs. Concerns about housing conditions led him to join the civil rights movement. He was present at Bloody Sunday.
The following year, in 1973, he was elected for the Social Democratic and Labour Party to Londonderry City Council, and was immediately elected as first nationalist mayor of the city since 1923. He held his seat on Londonderry City Council at the 1977 election, but did not stand in 1981. Later in life, McClean wrote about Bloody Sunday and the events leading up to it, holding a special interest in the long-term effects of the use of CS Gas. He died in 2011, and was survived by his wife Sheila, son Sean, and daughter Sheila.

Publications

McClean authored two books, The Road to Bloody Sunday, and A Cross Shared, and jointly authored a report providing medical perspectives on the deaths of some marchers on Bloody Sunday.
After treating more than 200 cases of CS gas exposure, he had a letter to the British Medical Journal published, on the effects of CS gas use in the Bogside, during The Troubles in Derry.