[Closed] Spotlight on The Troubles: A Secret History. - Defo worth a watch

I watched a bit, I need to watch it all to see if it was reasonably impartial. Problem with these types of shows is that they bring out the anger a bit, I was born in 85 with family in S Armagh so grew up with this stuff, these shows can be very hard to watch with a level head.

Watched it last night. And looked to be pretty even handed to my mind

Thanks for the heads up, looks an interesting watch.

A couple of colleagues were brought up over there during the Troubles - they believe that the society has moved on far enough that there are fewer extremists at both ends of the spectrum who may well try and restart the battles, but no longer have the quiet support/acceptance that they would have had in the 70s and 80s.

Bloody hope they are right

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Mrs S lived through the whole lot. She says it brought back a lot of unpleasant memories of being a teenager in the late 70's.

The interesting part was how PIRA played Ian Paisley and the Unionist Government like an old banjo. Some truly jaw dropping decisions made by RUC. Let's deploy a heavy machine gun for riot control and use it being the most obvious.

Did two tours in Crossmaglen and Belfast fairly good  impartial  TV and should be shown to all those Mad Dog Brexiteers on how bad it was back then!

Rich

Interesting that they showed the 'upper camp' part of Ballykelly (Shackleton Barracks) when discussing the interrogation of Republican prisoners, when the interrogations happened at the eastern end of the airfield site...

Having spent a fair amount of time in Northern Ireland (the majority of that time in South Armagh) I do hope we never return to those times.

An old colleague of mine lives in NI now and has visited a few of the sites we used to operate out of. Photos of what Bessbrook and G40 look like now are quite odd, given how they looked when we were over there.

Watched it last night. Very balanced and even. Definitely wouldn't have seen a programme like that in the 80's.

The actions of the UK Government and the Army was the perfect recruitment drive for the IRA.

Will give it a watch when I get the chance

This article was interesting background that I had no idea about (& how freaking complicit were the Tories of the day?!)

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/09/breaking-parliamentary-machine-lessons-1914-crisis

I don't watch movies or docs about the troubles as I lived it, however I've heard positive things about it.

I always get a chuckle whenever the English are shocked by the government's tactics. I guess most don't see NI as part of their nation. Shou3kd be a stark reminder that right wing UK governments take a very scorched earth approach to dissent. I wonder what other examples we have had recently..

I always get a chuckle whenever the English are shocked by the government’s tactics.

It's not so much the governments tactics that shocked me but more how the mainstream media, BBC, ITV, reported a completely biased view of the troubles. It wasn't until the late 80's that anyone started looking at what caused the rise of the PIRA and the role of authorities in supporting Loyalist terrorism.

gobuchul - the government controlled the media message. It wasnt until negotiations started in the 80s that they allowed the message to change.

gobuchul – the government controlled the media message. It wasnt until negotiations started in the 80s that they allowed the message to change.

I get that. Just didn't realise to the extent that they managed to control it and they all went along with it.

Interesting that they showed the ‘upper camp’ part of Ballykelly... when the interrogations happened at the eastern end of the airfield site…

Forgive my ignorance Sooty, but why is that important?

p2 is up.

Don’t forget the media was generally much more deferential to authority in those days. Look at coverage of the Falklands War - it comes across as pretty jingoistic...