Fifty Dead Men Walking 2008 - The Wind that Shakes the Barley 2006 - The First World War TV - Michael Wood TV - Alfred Fannin - Fergal Keane TV - Gerry Adams - David O’Connell - Bobby Sands - Bobby Sands: 66 Days TV - The IRA’s Secret History TV - The Gentle Gunman 1952 - Mad Dog: Gaddafi's Secret World TV - Maggie: The First Lady TV - The Crying Game 1997 - The Docklands Bomb: Executing Peace TV - Patriot Games 1991 - Spitting Image TV - Panorama TV - Bobby Sands: 66 Days TV - Exposure: Gaddafi & the IRA TV - Peaky Blinders TV - I, Dolours 2018 - This Week: Death on the Rock TV - The Day Mountbatten Died TV - The Troubles: A Secret History TV - Shadow Dancer 2012 - A Prayer for the Dying 1987 - Fergal Keane TV - Heist: The Northern Bank Robbery TV - Crimes that Shook Britain TV - Underworld: Dublin Gangland TV - Peter Taylor TV - Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland TV - Mairead: The Life and Death of an IRA Martyr aka Death of a Terrorist, 1989 - A Mother Brings Her Son to be Shot 2017 - Darragh MacIntyre, The Secret Army TV - The Heiress and the Heist 2023 - British Gangsters: Faces of the Underworld TV -
I was a handler with the Special Branch. Fifty Dead Men Walking 2008 starring Jim Sturgess & Ben Kingsley & Rose McGowan & Kevin Zegers & Kris Edlund & Natalie Press & Paschal Friel et al, director Kari Scogland
You’re Irish aren’t you? You were born with an opinion. ibid. her to him
You’ve got to expect a bit of killing, a bit of dying, in a revolution. ibid. friend
We all have murder in us. ibid. Fergus
It’s got to be done. I dream that one day we’ll walk as free men in our own country. The British have made us into their poor stupid cousins. ibid. IRA bloke
I do solemnly swear that to the best of my ability I will support and defend the government of the Irish Republic … The Wind that Shakes the Barley 2006 starring Cillian Murphy & Padraic Delaney & Liam Cunningham & Orla Fitzgerald & Laurence Barry & Mary O’Riordan & Myles Horgan & Martin Lucey & Roger Allam et al, director Ken Loach, oath
Britain had promised Ireland home rule. But the First World War shelved all that. Two hundred thousand Irishmen – Protestants and Catholics – would fight for Britain. About thirty thousand of them would die. But the Irish Republican Brotherhood – forerunners of the IRA – believed England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity. The First World War: Revolution, Channel 4 2003
In 1919 the Irish War of Independence – the Anglo-Irish War – brought the end of British rule after more than three centuries. Michael Wood, The Great British Story: A People’s History 8/8, BBC 2012
Easter Monday 1916: Sinn Fein has occupied railway stations, the GPS and other places. They have blocked the streets nearing Stephen’s Green. They are shooting at anyone they see in khaki. Alfred Fannin, writing to brother
Britain was confronted by the single most violent act on British soil since the war. After the arrival of British troops in Northern Ireland in 1969 there had been increasing violence in the province. When Edward Heath introduced Internment without trial for suspected terrorists, tension reached boiling point. On the 30th January 1972 a protest march was planned by the nationalist Catholic community of Londonderry or Derry ... From behind the barricades the orders went out to the Paras, Go and get ’em, and good luck ... And then it started: in barely thirty minutes thirteen civilians were dead ... Five of them were shot in the back ... The events around Bloody Sunday remain hotly disputed territory ... Before Bloody Sunday the IRA was comparatively puny and after it the violence spread in all directions. Within months an IRA bombing campaign was terrorising the mainland. Andrew Marr, The Making of Modern Britain, BBC 2009
The Act of Union had given Catholics economic power but their political destiny remained in the hands of London. Fergal Keane, The Story of Ireland 5/5: Age of Nations, BBC 2011
Fears grew that Britain would introduce conscription in Ireland. ibid.
[Patrick] Pearse stepped outside and read from a proclamation signed by himself and the six other leaders: he declared an Irish republic. ibid.
Public anger deepened following mass arrests and the imposition of martial law. ibid.
The volunteers evolved into the Irish Republican Army. ibid.
Collins would find himself directing a guerrilla war. The IRA campaign which began in 1919 was met with fierce reprisals against civilians by security forces like the Black & Tans. ibid.
In October 1921 a Sinn Fein delegation led by Michael Collins arrived in London to discuss a political settlement. ibid.
The slide to civil war had begun. ibid.
Michael Collins was assassinated in County Cork. ibid.
In the Protestant-ruled six counties of Ulster electoral boundaries had been drawn to ensure majorities for unionists in most areas. ibid.
A place of discrimination and exclusion. ibid.
Physical and sexual abuse on a large scale was part of the secret history of the new state. ibid.
Ireland remained neutral ... Germans bailing out over the South were interned. ibid.
Television challenged the voice of both priest and politician. Women joined the workforce in growing numbers and challenged discriminatory laws. ibid.
Republican and loyalist paramilitaries, policemen and soldiers, fought over the old ground. ibid.
Bloody Sunday: January 30th 1972. ibid.
Hunger strikes begin in the Maze Prison October 27th 1980. ibid.
Inequality between rich and poor was still amongst the worst of western Europe. ibid.
The full scale of clerical child abuse was revealed. ibid.
In 2008 a financial catastrophe unleashed public anger. ibid.
IRA disarmament September 26th 2005. ibid.
For over thirty years the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms. Gerry Adams
In the past I have defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle. I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee, or turn a blind eye to oppression, or for those who wanted a national republic. Gerry Adams
For five years the British government has had its forces waging a campaign of terror not just on the IRA but on the people of Ireland. David O’Connell, televised interview 17th November 1974
They won’t break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then that we will see the rising of the moon. Bobby Sands
1981 Belfast Northern Ireland: The conflict in Northern Ireland seems to be just on and on in a relentless cycle of violence, and then suddenly in 1981 it took the strangest darkest most dramatic twist when Bobby Sands and 9 of his young comrades insisting they be recognised as political prisoners went on hunger strike. Bobby Sands: 66 Days, BBC 2017
We could have celebrity gladiators. We could have the RUC fighting the IRA in spangly suits and cotton buds. Patrick Kielty
In the streets a score or more of people have been killed, most of them from the nationalist section of the population. Already, thousands of people are streaming in terror out of Belfast into primitive refugee camps in Southern Ireland.
The British government claims that it has had to introduce internment – imprisonment without trial – in order to ‘clear out the murderers’. The British press has backed up Heath and [Reginald] Maudling by continual talk of ‘terrorists’.
Most of the killing, however, has been carried out not by the IRA but by the British army and the bigoted thugs in the Orange Order. Paul Foot, Brian Trench, Jimmy Grealy & Chris Harman, article August 1971, ‘Army Reign of Terror’
Into the vacuum left by the politicians came the IRA .... Ending Partition was the IRA’s raison d’être. The IRA’s Secret History
I was as near to death as I am to you now. The Gentle Gunman 1952 starring John Mills & Dirk Bogarde & Robert Beatty & Elizabeth Sellars & Barbara Mullen & Eddie Byrne & Joseph Tomelty & Liam Redmond & James Kenney & Michael Golden & Jack McGowran & Gilbert Harding et al, director Basil Dearden, opening scene
If you value your life, don’t ever set foot in Ireland again. ibid. Bogarte to Mills
There are better ways of getting what you want than at the point of a gun. ibid. Mills to Bogarte
Virtually every bomb made by the Provisional IRA is thought to have contained Semtex shipped from a Libyan port. Mad Dog: Gaddafi’s Secret World, BBC 2014
In 1981 IRA prisoners went on hunger strike ... Margaret Thatcher became the IRA’s prime target. Maggie: The First Lady II