Who robbed them? Did the IRA carry it out? If the IRA did carry it out, did Martin McGuinness and Jerry Adams know about it? And they are at the heart of the Peace Process at this moment. ibid.
The Northern bank raid is among the biggest robberies of modern times, and yet so much of what happened is a mystery. ibid.
Internal bank CCTV captures the entire robbery unfolding. ibid.
6:28 p.m.: Chris returns to the bank for the real robbery to begin. ibid.
‘7 people have been arrested and more than £2 million seized: a possible connection with the Northern Bank Robbery just before Christmas … ‘A major [IRA] laundering operation.’ ibid.
Two members of the IRA are arrested in Cork. ibid.
March 2008: Three years after the robbery Ted Cunningham faced ten charges of money laundering. ibid.
January 2007: Two years after the robbery cases against two suspects collapse. ibid.
They couldn’t get any convictions: which is extraordinary when you think about this: the scale of it, the political significance of it, and the resources that the police put into this, and the huge vested interest they had in getting a conviction. ibid.
The most secure prison in all of Europe. A tight-knit group of hardened inmates embroiled in a bloody conflict planing an escape of epic proportions. Hoping to pull of one of the largest and most elaborate prison escapes in all of history. Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman s1e6: Belfast Breakout, History 2021
This is 1980s Northern Ireland: it’s a prison built next to a British military base. Its name: The Maze. ibid.
The full plan is now in place: take over the control room using guns to subdue the guards. Prevent any alarms from being sounded. Hijack the truck and its driver at H-Block 7’s loading dock. Put up to 40 prisoners in the back of the truck. Get through the main gate with the truck driver at gunpoint. Overwhelm security at the military gate and drive out of the prison grounds. Then meet up with their IRA contacts on the nearby roads. What can go wrong? ibid.
But many do make it all the way to freedom. But the long reach of the British government … It was a violent, traumatic escape. ibid.
30th January 1972: There was nothing fired at them. I’m absolutely certain of that. I can speak without any difficulty whatsoever because I was there. Completely outrageous. Disgraceful. The White Handkerchief, Father Edward Daly news interview, BBC 2022
January 2022 marked the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when British Army Paratroopers killed 13 unarmed civil rights marchers on the streets of Derry’s Bogside. ibid.
50 years on, Derry’s Playhouse Theatre commissioned an ambitious new piece of work to both commemorate the events of Bloody Sunday and inspire a new generation of talent in the City. ibid.
There was one issue that really angered Mrs Thatcher and that was the way the BBC covered Northern Ireland. Days that Shook the BBC, BBC 2022
‘Oh the 80s hair! [beauty contest] … I was really a greenhorn. I had never been outside of Derry … I wasn’t me … Nobody knew that my brother was murdered … I survived the fucking troubles … Nothing’s going to beat me down …’ Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland I, BBC 2023
From the late 1960s Northern Ireland was torn apart by a violent conflict that would last for near 30 years. It was widely known as The Troubles. ibid. captions
‘We had a civil rights movement … peaceful demonstrations … housing, jobs and better conditions …’ ibid. Wee Bill
‘You knew deep down that something was going to happen.’ ibid. young lady
‘All our life and heritage is at stake … Romanism has controlled in this land for many centuries and Romanism has bread poverty and ignorance and priestcraft and superstition …’ ibid Paisley
August 1969: Battle of the Bogside: ‘All red. Houses blazing … There was whole streets being burned out by Protestant extremists …’ ibid.
‘The price of no solution is total destruction.’ ibid. politician
‘They had an enemy right in front of them in green uniform.’ ibid. witness
‘Your whole day was preoccupied with the riots.’ ibid.
‘They were angry and they were shouting and they were wrecking the place.’ ibid. young lady
‘That’s the only thing we had. Internment … They were not the right people …’ ibid.
‘I couldn’t believe how quickly my lovely city became divided. I really couldn’t. Everything died.’ Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland s1e2: Do Paramilitaries Lie Awake at Night?
‘You could even smell the bombs.’ ibid.
‘The whole tone of the war seemed to deteriorate after Bloody Friday.’ ibid.
‘Are you in favour of tar-and-feathering? ibid. TV interview of young women
‘And then the IRA took my mother away.’ ibid.
‘They built a ring of steel around the city centre.’ ibid.
‘The Troubles. That’s been our life from children. In the flick of a switch your life can change for ever.’ Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland s1e3: So Many Broken Hearts
1976 Maze Prison H Blocks: The government ruled on March 1st 1976 that terrorists committed of crimes after that date will no longer get special category status. news
‘From her on in every prisoner is a criminal. The Republican prisoners they refused to be criminalised. They refused to wear prison clothes. They refused to do prison work. And they were thrown in a cell and thrown a blanket.’ ibid.
‘You only got half an hour a month. You’re looking at a different man who is obsessed with his role in Republicanism … I hated going up … Women were left carrying the can.’ ibid. wife prison visitor
‘There are the first pictures to be taken of the protesters. ibid. TV news
March 1981: ‘A hunger strike. Well there was a huge list … Our job was to pick people who would die. As simple as that.’ ibid. dude
‘There was 100,000 people or something at Bobby Sands’ funeral. So much fear and anger and hopelessness.’ ibid. woman
‘There was quite a lot of murders during the hunger strike.’ ibid.
The IRA called off the Hunger Strike 3rd October 1981. Three days later the British government granted almost all of the prisoners’ demands but without any formal recognition of political status. The Hunger Strike paved the way for Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA to became a major force in politics. ibid. captions
‘I wanted to just be like everybody else … Our life was living a lie all of the time about who we were …’ Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland s1e4: Loose Talk Costs Lives
‘The Irish Republican Army this morning made its most audacious and potentially most devastating attack yet on the British government. Just after 3 a.m. this morning they attempted to assassinate the prime minister, members of her cabinet and other leading Tory politicians.’ ibid. BBC news
‘The bodies of the three IRA volunteers shot in Gibraltar were taken from their homes draped in the Irish Tricolour followed by a growing procession of mourners …’ ibid.
‘Michael Anthony Stone, a 32 year old Unemployed builder, appeared in a Belfast magistrates court this afternoon charged with the murders of three people.’ ibid.
‘It was something I had to do.’ ibid.
Rather than paying protection to Loyalist paramilitaries … [and] chairman of the Gaelic football club … Reason enough for them to kill him. Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland s1e5: Who Wants to Live Like That? son re father
‘People dying on the Shankhill Road … A bar had just been sprayed … ‘and shot dead seven people’ … ‘in between more people were killed … forgotten’ … ibid.
All we want is peace.’ ibid. protest rally lady
‘The IRA has announced a ceasefire that will start at midnight tonight.’ ibid. BBC news
In August 1994 the IRA called a ceasefire. Loyalist paramilitaries followed six weeks later. ibid. caption
April 1998: ‘An historic agreement for peace in Northern Ireland has been reached in the past few minutes …’ ibid. BBC news
‘The Struggle was my life.’ ibid. woman