BBC documentary making is just unparalleled, when they really try it’s incredible. This and The Death of Yugoslavia are the best war documentary series out there.
I never took sides before started watching this serie. At the beginning felt that IRA’s cause was justified because of the election results and what they got from it - but at some point someone said that the goal was a socialist country, some sort of Cuba in british isles I guess. What were IRA supporters inclined to at the end, left or to the right?
@@tujuprojects Interesting view but in my opinion, the socialist aspect is in regards to James Conolly's vision of socialism and not Cuba, yet it is a good comparison.
@@RipperBravo hi there...I don't suppose you have any further information regarding those/that book(s) at all please? An ISBN number or even a title would do, if you could please?
1:16:01 (1-7) the best documentary I have seen explaining the troubles in Northern Ireland, helped to broaden my understanding about what actually happened, glad that peace now reigns supreme.
Same. How many *times* have you watched them all now? I can say for myself probably more than a dozen. As for follow-up videos, articles and information on various people, locations and events covered within this series....well, probably weeks, months worth of media! The Troubles were deeply horrifying at times, but it's also deeply fascinating, I'm sure you'd agree.
Don't hold your breath. It will likely never ever happen. And there is still a huge swathe of the loyalist population that refuse to accept that it even happened. Despite the evidence. But then half the DUP believe the world is 6,000 years old because the bible tells them so. So evidence not really the strong suit there.
He still does. It's strange though because it kind of looks like he's throwing his comrades under the bus. A man like Mandela got his hands dirty and did his time. Adams took all the glory and by most accounts never fired a shot.
@@dominicseanmccann6300 Adams is the man the Stormont raid and the outing of Denis Donaldson was designed to protect…he is the man whose fingerprints are on those files…Donaldson took one for the team.
Like said in the video it's quite easy to understand why it all kicked off,unionist domination, unbelievable injustice and suppression of the nationalist community. The ira became the result of this then countered by the loyalist terrorists. The innocent people got caught up unfortunately. A sad period caused by colonial plantation which could only cause long term problems. Now its for all in Northern Ireland to determine their own future. Peace always I hope
What I found most sad about it is that it didn't have to end this way. Once the violence of partition died down NI had remarkable peace compared to what had come before and what came after. Everyone could have lived perfectly adequately together had Stormont not been hell bent on making a unionist super fortress state. And I say that as a unionist. Even in the 60s we could have avoided the dreadful next thirty years. Terence O'Neill really was stuck in a bad position. Unable to appease his own party, and unable to make significant enough change. Right plan, wrong man. It's a shame really, he had enough sense in him to see Northern Ireland needed to modernise and change. As usual everyone suffers from the hard-line dinosaurs who can never adapt.
@@pingu255 thank you for your reply which is gracious and thought out well. Coming from the very south of ireland I have a certain image of Northern Ireland, you may assume most in South are republican, not at all. We are a republic,patriotic its true but most hated the 30 year conflict and were deeply saddened by the ira terrorism, loyalist too and the general sad loss of life in the conflict. True Northern Ireland was for a long period peaceful enough but I guess the social problems plus discrimination finally exploded when in the 60s marches started,the civil rights. We in South saw the unionists as the problem with gerrymandering of electoral areas to guarantee power and general discrimination against nationalist or Catholic population, always said in South if that wasn't the case the North could have been very different and no wasteful conflict would have occurred. In the south when the republic was proclaimed, religious and civil freedoms were guaranteed. Your struggle went deeper, it wasn't necessarily religion but identity and the desire to stay in uk or reunification. That carried implications and provoked extremism on both sides which drowned out reasonable voices. Extraordinary to think that when the uup and sdlp were in power it was conflict then the dup and sinn fein arrived and peace!!! To see mcguinness and paisley together was extraordinarily, 2 opposite ideals. But it's done now and there's peace,let's hope you all evolve as you desire and live well, hope personally never to see terrorism ever again and if you stay in uk,that's better but if ever you join the republic, hope your welcome will be huge and long live ireland, north and south.
Northern Ireland was the states longest training exercise,they created it all,formed and cast every player,sad.for the innocent and awfully sad for those kids who walked behind a murderered parent or older siblings coffin,that grief scared them for life.
On so we're going to ignore everything in the last few episodes about British agents being sent to murder women and teenage girls?? It was all the PIRA, who didn't exist when the UVF reformed and the police were helping loyalists burn people out of their homes
There has never been a more wicked creature to walk this planet than the human being. Our history is filled with never ending conflicts, wars and killings. Hell exists in our hearts. We are the masters of hatred.
16:36 a very interesting moment between Adams and Cahill. Joe Cahill was a veteran but many regarded him as a doddery old timer. Yet he was incredibly important with regard to propaganda for Adams selling the agreement to hardcore Republicans. Cahill lifts Adams arm up and he recoils a bit. I'm no expert but there is some discernible contempt in that gesture. Maybe an awareness that cameras are rolling and perhaps they don't want to appear too triumphalist. Fascinating
Thanks for pointing that out! I was actually at about 16:20 When I read your comment, lol how convenient. It did seem like an awkward moment with Adams hand kind of loosely flopping around
Superb series that covers the wide span of the "troubles" ,its beginings ,the reasons ,the wide separation between the protagonists and how it came to an end. But if there was one moment out of the whole series it was the aftermath of the cynical murder of the two RUC men in Lurgan only weeks away from a resumption of the ceasefire. The face of that child at the funeral of his father , at around the 54th minute, says more than the whole series about why this should never occur again. Reading some of the comments below it is hard to be certain it will not.
As terrible as that was seeing the wee boy greeting at his dad's funeral,i dont think that was the worst that happened,and was that not the real ira that did that not that i condone it. 🆓️🇮🇪🇻🇦🍀
I didn`t say it was the worst thing that happened. I said it was the moment in the series that for me summed up the whole misery of it.There are many more children I have no doubt. As to the real IRA doing it I do not remember it like that and if it was given out as such it was implied in the program that it was done to pressure the Government ."See what happens" . I never thought of the various IRA factions as being totally separate and it was just too convenient to be coincidence.
@@billycaspersghost7528 There were also wee boys and lassies who were Catholic that went through the same thing,and if it took you until near the end of the troubles to come to your conclusion that says it all!!just like the uda uff uvf all sang from the same sheet,the British government!!🆓️🇮🇪🇵🇸
I was picking one scene out of a series covering 40 years. A brilliant piece of journalism, covering the depravities of all three sides. Like the PIRA member that broke down and asked "what the fuck was it all about" at the end of an earlier episode it was a moment that hit home. Like the chilling interview with the Loyalist killer involved in the killing of an old couple and others as "returning the serve". Like the journalist chasing after the member of Billy Wrights murder gang who seems to have walked away and be living his life like nothing happened. Like the priest who wished he had done more .(plant shrapnel bombs in public areas.... not fight the Paras in a firefight) I was not making any sectarian point.A childs misery is as disturbing to me,as a parent, whether they are Catholic or Protestant. I do not know how to distinguish between Republican or Unionist tears. If the sound had been turned off and I had not heard the context ,I would still have been moved by that scene and made my original point as to why this should never happen again. Those on either side who think today they are fighting for a cause should give pause and think that all they will do is set that pendulum swinging again and once it starts ,as we well know, it takes decades to stop.If ever. My original comment was about a single scene that encapsulated the misery of those long years .I think the producers wanted to make the same point. They succeded.
@@billycaspersghost7528 what you mean 3 sides??it was loyalist murder gangs alongside british forces v the republican factions ira inla,so dont try throwing that about as if the brits were not helping the loyalists,you loyalists,wit are yous like??🤣🤣🆓️🇮🇪🇵🇸
Great documentary series! As for Gerry Adams and whether he is or isn't in the IRA, it seems odd that with all the spies and informants in the IRA, none that I know of have confirmed Adams' membership. Several former members have fingered him, but no one from the British side. However, if MI 5 does have a lot of secret files squirreled away, the truth may be hidden there. Whatever the answer is, Adams and McGuinness deserve credit for ultimately steering the Republican movement towards peace.
It was military intelligence who steered the ira to a cease fire . They infiltrated the republicans movement at the highest levels and pushed it from that angle .
Mcquiness opened fire. Msm photaghrapic evidence. Let's not congratulate such evil terrorists like zelensky portrayed as angels they are not. Good honest men n women served in NI. They had rules of engagement that ruled over in favour of Adams. Guinness and evils.. UK should have one better job as they would in Scotland England Wales.. All men and his dog input causing more harm.
What shaped the peace,hear it is in one short sentence,and this is relevant in any conflict........when the corporate companies see an opportunity to expand and move in,governments will facilitate through there agencies to stop the conflict.
Hard to imagine what could be dirtier or more rotten than what we already know. But he makes a good point - it was a reality war. A war of competing versions. And the Brits knew that as soon as it was over, they would lose their grip on the narrative. Which is why they dragged their feet with the peace process - and added another decade to the conflict. They knew that when they no longer had a bogeyman to justify their control of the media, their evil tactics would come out. Atrocities in NI had British Cabinet approval. Terrorism was government policy. Words like "collusion" and "informant" are redundant euphemisms. They're words used to misdirect, draw us into some shadowy secret world, where we conclude that we'll never know the half of it - better to leave it alone and move on. But, if you take a step back, and look at the bigger picture, it's fuckin diabolical. So unbelievably sinister, that the British version still prevails as accepted history. The version where the state was the neutral arbiter of a sectarian conflict. As opposed to the truth. Where they engineered 30 years of terror on nationalists in the north.
O'Kane Well, they obviously have an interest in keeping some skeletons in the closet, given what we know about FRU, and how they have resisted public enquiries/ releasing of information into several slayings, Finucane’s being one. I also found it curious that a compensation hearing for a victim of Brian Nelson’s was quickly settled out of court for some 90 thousand pounds (back in July 2019). It makes you wonder what prompted that haste, and what else lies in the files we now know that MI5 have collected on those activities. www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/gun-victim-who-says-british-spy-targeted-him-to-receive-90-000-1.3923287 The only reason we got an enquiry into Bloody Sunday was the pioneering journalistic work of people like Don Mullan and Peter Taylor (particularly Taylor, it’s hard to portray people as terrorists when soldiers admit on camera what went on). As the minutes of the meeting between Widgery and Ted Heath in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday confirm, the British establishment were fighting not only a military war but a propaganda one. Hence the censorship of the media at that time. But when the penny drops with the loyalists... It should be obvious by now that England doesn’t care about them and will cut them adrift as soon as it’s expedient. Whither then?
@@TheLastAngryMan01 Who knows, but it can't be any worse than where we've been. Maybe M15 don't want people to know they're running the country... I've never understood the British motivation in the north. I get the whole orange card thing, and how handy that's always been for the Tories. But at the same time I still just don't get it. The ruling class is a hateful breed. Hard to fathom.
O'Kane Well, the UK was once a superpower and is now a middle order power. They still have very significant military and economic interests all over the globe though, and still bandwagons with the US in pursuit of a share of the spoils from their military boondoggles. So it makes sense, from their point of view, to keep a hold of NI, for strategic reasons and also as a training ground for their defence agencies of various kinds. Remember the wording of Peter Brooke’s quote, “the UK has no selfish strategic interest in NI”. But what about unselfish strategic interests?
O'Kane I’ve read some shite comments over these documentaries but yours is priceless. If the British Hadn’t got involved in 1969 ask yourself how Irish affairs would have panned out? There was no offer of the Irish government to use its troops as a neutral police(as they do in many parts of the world)to even attempt to solve any early sectarian problems so your so-called countrymen down south sold you out. I personally think it was a mistake sending in British soldiers and we should have just left catholic houses burning and families forced to move out. You would have had more to complain about then than just British soldiers on your streets. Bloody Sunday???...consider yourselves fortunate it was only 13 killed as there was recently protests in IRAQ over its own governments corruption and over 100 were killed with thousands wounded by its own army. If protesters want to turn against throwning objects than can kill the moderators put in place to restore peace then expect to be met with returning violence. Read the saville inquiry as it clearly states soldiers came under fire from the IRA. I just love the hypocrisy of the minority,bitter republicans who professed to hate all things English yet had no problem coming over looking for work,supporting our football teams and cashing state benefits & spending money with the queens head on it. I can’t also wish Ireland independence as it’ll only be a pipe dream because you will still be governed by a foreign power in Brussels and will be back with your cap in hand looking for another bailout because you can’t sustain bigger benefits bills from the north thus effectively tying you into the EU forever. Ive read where Ireland’s status will revert back to being 3rd world so..enjoy your independence 😂😂😂
There is a little accuracy in the comment Alan Partridge made about Gerry Adams looking like a deputy headmaster and Martin McGuinness looking like a clown without make up
Good series. However I am disturbed that the "troubles" have Given justification for violent people to exercise power over the population who may have just wanted stability. The question remains have these individuals gone away or have they got a new name " organised crime"??
The loyalists became huge drug dealers. Even having a massive power feud over the drug territories in early 00s. There was still plenty of mayhem for a while after 97.
@@matthew1882 Totally agree. There were many more groups that should have been addressed. Not just the loyalists. Omagh was absolutely shocking and should never of happened.
Just finishing watching the 7 episodes. The only time In my life that I have ever voted was a yes to the GFA. I now live in the US and have no intention of ever voting again, as in this country, it doesn’t matter. I can’t believe that peace was achieved: something i never thought never possible growing up. It’s such a testament to the people of Northern Ireland who obtained the impossible
@@loneprimate no it doesn’t. Tell me how trump was any worse than bush or Obama? In fact it can be argued that his foreign policy was was less hawkish that the rest of them.
@@loneprimate besides, I can’t vote in america because I’m not a citizen but if I could, it would be for a 3rd party. The military industrial complex, the media and the corporations own, and have both parties in their back pocket. So it really doesn’t matter if you vote red or blue
Something about that American fella that makes me find him hard to take seriously and the how it makes me cringe when he says the likes of "Brits"... Yikes
The first time I watched this documentary months ago, I read this comment and instantly agreed. I've watched it a few times since and every time he says 'Brits' I laugh. I feel very disrespectful to the people he tried to blow up but I can't help it, the guy cracks me up every time he appears on screen.
Utter bullshit. It was never the way forward. The UK had always said they would allow unification if the majority of the population of NI agreed to it, that never changed. What changed was POS like Adams finally realizing they would never win an armed conflict.
Hardly in the late sixties and seventies when the nationalist community didn't have the right to vote and unionists ruled the roost in every local council@@Wilson-xd4zq
What was acknowledged in John D. Ruddy's video about The Troubles is that the majority of those killed between 1969 and 1998 were noncombatants. It's not like the ones targeted were only IRA on one side, various organisations related to the British state on the other, most unfortunately simply found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's possible that the only way that a truly impartial court would be one set up by the United Nations, especially in terms of dealing with the unresolved issues regarding Bloody Sunday for example, 30th January 1972, where the British Army opened fire upon unarmed protesters and covered up what they knew, or the Omagh Bombing, the single biggest terrorist attack in Northern Ireland
Wrong place at the wrong time? More like the right place at the right time whenever the Brits magically disappeared in nationalist areas to give a free run to loyalist death squads
Brings back memories of childhood, watching a lot of this on TV news reports, yet I never quite understood it all, maybe still don't. What was the point of all of it? those murderers can look back at it all and wonder. I hope it haunts them to madness, there was never any point to it, just murder, pure and simple, that includes the British Army and RUC.
Much more than the efforts of UK security services there are some other key factors eg. Fatigue of running never-ending war, economic success down south, general fall off in support globally for ‘terrorism’, gradual removal of most explicit sectarian discrimination which fuelled nationalist grievance…
1 was born in 1966... Less than 3 km from the border.., we still will continue this fight.... We didn't decommission anything in our area... And we won't.... UNTILL EIRE IS FREE.... WITH SELF DETERMINATION
When talking about modern Ireland one thing that needs to be mentioned was how a Protestant Irish Parliament successfully gained independence for Ireland between 1782 and 1800, during which time Catholics got most of their rights back, with most Irish people of different faiths uniting under the ideologies of either constitutionalism or Republicanism, with both in favour of varying degrees of Irish sovereignty/autonomy and increased personal rights. This independence ended when a failed Republican Revolution in 1798 led British prime minister William Pitt to intimidate and bribe the Irish Parliament into merging the Kingdom Ireland into the UK after an initial Union vote failed. Ireland’s Parliament was forced to merge with The British one (though the courts and civil service of Ireland remained separate, but nominally subject to Westminster from now on). People on both sides seem to have completely forgotten this chapter in Irish history, because Protestants and Catholics fighting together for an independent Irish Kingdom doesn’t fit anyone’s narrative, and yet it had a major impact on the island. Unionism, Republicanism and Constitutionalism all originate from the original Irish volunteers that used the opportunity of the American Revolution distracting Britain to revolt in 1782. This heralded the independence and has shaped all aspects of Irish politics ever since..
I'm one of those people everybody complains about, an American with Irish ancestors. Some say mine are too far removed in time for me to even claim to be Irish-American. And here's where I confuse people. I'm a descendant of Irish from both sides of the politico-religious line. I'm an atheist who was raised Protestant. And I can't see how there could be a united Ireland in my lifetime. But I do know two things: I love Ireland and the Irish more than I probably should, and I dearly wish you all could find a way to get on with one another. "Let us stop talking and get on with our work." - Michael Collins.
So very well done....bravo. What I took away from the series was this: DO NOT screw around with British Intelligence or the SAS--that, and don't piss down an Irishman's neck n tell him it's raining. In the end, I'd say that the IRA's bombing Lord Louie Mountbatten was what caused the Brits to fight the IRA like the Brits fought the Third Reich--no holds barred. And I don't blame them.
_"caused the Brits to fight the IRA like the Brits fought the Third Reich"_ Hiding behind an ice age moat till Uncle Sam showed up? Sounds about right. Look, Scott, I don't know what YOU think happened, but here's a quick rundown. The IRA abandoned "the war" in the early 1960s. Catholics in the north marched for just plain equal rights-not reunification; just a fair shake at jobs, housing, and representation-and they were murdered on the streets by the British Army for it, and that brought the IRA back. The IRA, a bunch of guys with no nation-state apparatus behind them, fought the British with an astonishing degree of success for 30 years. They brought down the original version of Stormont. They bombed the British to the table and negotiated a new constitutional arrangement for Northern Ireland that included their stake in governing the place at last and even the recognized right to reunite with the Republic in the event that a majority expressed that desire. NONE OF THAT was anything nationalists had in 1968. Now where do you see the defeat of the Third Reich in THAT result?
Maybe it is the American in me. But man, whether you agree with the Good Friday Agreement or not, you do NOT...not EVER...hand in your weapons to the government. What good could possibly come from disarming yourself? That's just crazy.
32:25 Undefeated by the British? Kieran Conway of the IRA disagrees. _The attrition rate was just so appalling. The British Intelligence Services were obviously in a position to intercept most operations. It was absolutely clear we were losing, if we hadn’t already lost, the war. And it was time to cash in the chips._ - Kieran Conway, IRA intelligence officer
The BBC has lost its way. Series like this are what made the BBC the gold standard, now it's toxic culture of wokeness has destroyed its credibility and series like this are much fewer and farther between.
And in spite of the state-sponsored British terrorism, Ireland will soon be united anyway, in no small way thanks to the current reckless UK government. Oh, the irony.
Being 70, lifelong learning, understanding, observation, experience, re-examination 24/7 365 Corollary and cause go hand in hand in such circumstances as these reports show. Justice is deaf dumb and blind and has no memory, yet trauma is perpetual. The 20th century and now here in this 21st century the so called future there is no relief or change. The conscious cognosentient being is a victim of perpetual trauma globally. Is there an ending to the suffering in sight or is there no such entity while the past is the conduit of vile actions? No god here.
Stephen Doran; there's no question as to how the presenter has a 'ginger beard and white hair' - you obviously never went to school, or if you did, you never studied biology. You're showing your ignorance now which is pretty ugly. Read a book and get off the internet.
It was pretty although I felt some British bias and a dash of triumphalism. It should be noted that the most if not all of the prominent former IRA personnel who appeared in this series are dissidents or people who otherwise fallen out with the largest nationalist party and do not approve of the peace process.
To be fair: they did ask Adams for an interview (he refused) and there are at least 2 episodes dedicated to Loyalist killing and the dirty side of the security services. It's very well balanced and I think it presents hard truths about all sides of the conflict.
That's the English for you. They'll tell Scotland they can't have a pro-trans law, but they were perfectly fine with Northern Ireland having laws to gerrymander Catholics and deny them employment and housing and did nothing about it for years and years and decades until at last their own cities started to explode. Oh, THEN it became something that needed attention... >:/
It’s a very good series, though I think your comment that Martin McGuinness was leader of the IRA Northern Command at the very moment Patsy Gillespie was killed, is questionable. He was, at this time, involved in peace talks representing Sinn Fein and did not hold a command in the IRA. Though the British had some difficulty distinguishing the two organization, members of Sinn Fein did not have any control over the IRA.
Question . . . during this time in the 1990s, were the Catholic Republicans the majority in Northern Ireland? If so, why didn’t they simply agree with the British proposal and say, “Okay, let’s have a referendum and vote!” And, if this was the British proposal all along, why in the Hell didn’t the Catholic Republicans agree to it right away? They had the votes for a slam dunk victory for a united Ireland. WTF? Please tell me I am missing something here!
@@philipdrew1066 Thank you! I think I became confused while watching another video analyzing the gerrymandered Catholic districts in wherein Catholics were in the majority, but held a minority of council seats. I incorrectly leapt to the assumption that Catholics were in the overall majority in N. Ireland. I’m so fascinated by the history of N. Ireland. I’ve probably watched 20+ hours of documentaries on the subject during quarantine. It’s utterly heartbreaking on all sides.
F*cking pathetic behavior from M. McGuiness and G.Adams to still not take responsibility for the brutal murders they ordered after all these years. This is a disgrace