To suggest that people unfamiliar with the Northern Ireland conflict watch an episode of ‘Pop Goes Northern Ireland’ on iPlayer?

[Cakescakescakes]

I’m starting this by presuming you can watch BBC NI programmes in the rest of the UK?

Pop Goes Northern Ireland is a series looking at news footage from the Troubles year by year soundtracked (rather than narrated) by songs from that year. Tonight was about 1988 - dozens and dozens of murders - murders of innocents of all ages, state murders of IRA members, bomb attacks on school children, grenade attacks on funerals and the savage event where two soldiers were dragged from a car and shot in broad daylight. Total and utter horror on all sides involved. No winners.

Someone on a Brexit thread the other day mentioned that it ‘wouldn’t be ideal’ for trouble to flare up in NI again following Brexit and that breathtaking lack of insight made me post this.

Get a snapshot of what it was like living through this year after year after year (1988 wasn’t even ‘that bad’ relative to the 70’s etc). Recent history on your own doorstep.

My mum moved to Ireland in the early 1970s. I think that 1972 might have been the year when she was wheeled into the corridor during a coil fitting because there was a gun battle just outside the clinic. I'm fairly sure that 1988 was the year we had Christmas with no windows and a hole in the roof after our house (in a very naice, middle class, mixed area) was damaged by a bomb.

And I had a very sheltered and privileged upbringing in many ways.

I don't want to see things go back to the way they were.

Thank you for sharing this. My DP is Irish and in his late 30s, I'm Scottish and we live in an area of Scotland where there is a high NI population so I'd consider myself fairly well educated around the issues but sometimes I struggle with examples when discussing with other people as I don't have personal experience.

He tells me that it's only as an adult that he has felt safe in Belfast and he is increasingly alarmed at the way things are going. Once my contract at work is finished we will be moving to Dublin (his home) but I can't say I'm not anxious about the future experience of crossing the land border when I want to get the ferry to visit my home

I've watched the first few of the programmes and it brings back my memories of the news every night growing up. There was always something. It was horrific and I was just watching from the south. Nobody wants to go back to this and hopefully we won't.

However, for an outsider watching the programmes, I think they give a slightly skewed view of the violence. In the episodes I've seen, they are mainly showing IRA violence. While the majority of casualties were as a result of republican violence, there was plenty of violence by loyalist paramilitaries and British security forces too. There were about 2000 victims of Republican paramilitaries, 1000 by loyalist paramilitaries and 350 by security forces.

It is important to note that the violence came from all sides as implying that it came mainly from one side can result in British people believing that it's "just" a matter of dealing with the IRA. The fact that it came from all sides shows the depth of hatred and distrust that could be resurrected if a reasonable agreement isn't reached.

You’re completely right - there was absolutely fault on all sides - which is what makes it so terrible. I must say that on the whole I’ve found the series to be relatively even handed, eg the 1988 episode mentioned above goes into detail about the SAS murders of three IRA members. And many army killings eg Ballymurphy are explored in later episodes. But yes absolutely it is not as simple as goodies and baddies - there was darkness and evil lurking under the ideologies on both sides.

I've only watched the first 4 so it may be more even handed as it progresses. It may be that the IRA bombings make "better" visual television. Loyalist murders tended to be shootings so not so much to see in the aftermath.

theymade I think you've hit the nail on the head. They do refer to lots of loyalist violence in the programme but it tends to be a picture of a police corden and eg the front door of a house, because that was how they operated mostly - knock on the door and shoot the person who answers.

Whereas a huge bomb had a lot of spectacular footage in the aftermath.

Those smaller scale killing GS were chilling. We had a family friend who worked as a taxi driver for a while, and it was such a scary job, knowing that they were easy targets for sectarian killings.

Definitely. They were such an easy target, one phonecall and away you go.

YANBU this whole thing with the ‘soft’ border ‘hard’ border needs to be taken seriously by the U.K. government - it’ll be British soldiers sent to N.I. If it all kicks off and Brexit was the worst thing for the province. I don’t get why the U.K. gov are pissing around waffling in about ‘trade’ like THATs what actually matters in all this...

In fairness, the first episode shows the roots of the Troubles, when nationalist civil rights marches came under attack by loyalist mobs and the police backed up the mobs and physically attacked nationalists - the Irish government had to set up field hospitals at the border to treat the injured. And why were there civil rights marches? Because Catholics were routinely discriminated against in housing, education, employment and in elections through redrawing constituency boundaries (gerrymandering).

@doobeydoo - yes it did. But if you didn't know that already, I don't think it was terribly clear in the first episode. Even in the bits where they showed nationalists giving tea and food to the soldiers, they didn't say it was the nationalists or why they were so pleased to see the arrival of the British army. Equally, they didn't say what the B Specials were or why the nationalists wanted them disbanded. I know my kids wouldn't have understood a lot of that as they have no memory of the troubles.

theymademejoin I see what you mean - it went very quickly. And also, by skipping 1972 they skipped Bloody Sunday which was the greatest recruitment call to the IRA....

@doobeydoo - and the hunger strike and Thatcher's intransigence did the recruitment in the early 80's.

After the Brighton bombing in 1984, her attitude became understandably more intransigent.

I always suspected she was an undercover agent for the IRA as she single handedly recruited more members than anyone else.

theymademejoin I see what you mean - it went very quickly. And also, by skipping 1972 they skipped Bloody Sunday which was the greatest recruitment call to the IRA....

They didn't skip 1972. There is a whole episode on it and it's certainly not flattering for the British government and the army.

I agree the British army and government come off badly in it but I don't think they showed bloody Sunday. In particular, the shot of Daly with the white hankie is very evocative. I was surprised not to see that as any coverage of bloody Sunday on RTE includes that. I guess it just shows the different material the two companies have in their archives.

Sorry what are you trying to achieve asking people to watch something that happened a third of a century ago?

The Troubles were a soundtrack to my childhood growing up in London - and anglicised up to 11 fur any child growing up in NI.
It still resonates in parts of the UK including the west of Scotland. It isn’t ‘over’ it’s not forgotten and it’s frightening how easy it is to accept a civil war happening practically on your doorstep.

It’s also appalling how casual people can be about the situation - it must be deeply worrying if you live in NI.

Anglicised? Amplified

I'm Irish descent on both sides, many generations back in Australia. Mum's family is from the north, Dad's family from the south. We are still absolutely terrified of the British etc..

Bloody Sunday was covered and there was some quite harrowing footage of blood, frightened people, the injured being carried, bodies on the ground covered by a sheet, an interview with Ivan Cooper, etc plus an interview with a very arrogant British officer, so it definitely wasn't glossed over.

I was pretty sure they included the footage of Daly and the white hankie too, but I'd have to watch again to be sure. Maybe I've seen it so many times that my brain just associates it with bloody Sunday to such an extent that I assumed I saw it this time too.

The irony of the third post in this thread proving the Ops point so very beautifully! That was almost poetic!

Thank you OP will watch it. Our lovely kids on the mainland and NI have a right to the hard won peace that's been had for the last 25 years. There's a lot of us on the side of peace.

My mum worked in a clothes shop in Belfast when I was younger. The last thing they did after closing was to check pockets of all the clothes for incendiary devices (fire bombs). Every day. That’s how ingrained the threat was.

This happened in England and Scotland too. I used to work in shops as a teen (late 90s), and we had to check coat pockets, check display beds etc for anything untoward. And bomb scares and evacuations were regular.

How quickly we forget.

I shall watch this, thanks. Is it suitable for 12 yos does anyone know?

My 11 year old watched it with us, but there is some upsetting footage so it depends how you feel about letting them see that stuff I suppose.