Once upon a time in Northern Ireland
I had been told about this new BBC documentary on Northern Ireland (NI). I had heard about it on the Radio and people asked if I had watched it. I hadn't and wasn't intending to.
It was like a piece of pornography that I may be tempted to watch but it would do me no good so I resisted it until I pressed the play button on BBC iPlayer.
Unless you were Adam there is also a story before you and even with Adam, that may also have been true.
I was born in 1970, the story of ‘The Troubles’ began in 1966 or so it is thought as with any story the exact timing is never really remembered. Perhaps that is the reason for the title, ‘Once upon a time…..’
By the time I was old enough to be aware of the story that I was in I was about seven. It was only later I would learn that the Civil Rights Association was set up to reform a voting system which gave votes to those who owned properties and had a university degree according to the Irish legal website. I still had to look that up after all these years!
Even now I find it difficult to comprehend such a system. I did note that one of the interviewees from the predominantly Protestant Waterside area of L’Derry said the grievances of the Catholics were also hers namely outside toilets. What perhaps got lost was that working-class Protestants were probably experiencing similar conditions to working-class Catholics under a class system that put the monied Protestants on top.
But it was a fast-changing story and what began as civil rights turned to ideas of a united Ireland. This now stoked the fears of the Protestants aided by Protestant preacher Ian Paisley who pitted the attack on Protestants as inspired by the Roman Catholic Church.
The stories that I had heard of Catholics serving British soldiers tea and sandwiches were retold on the programme. Yet the story changes quickly and dramatically when the British Army in 1972 shot dead 13 people in ‘Derry. These witnesses told the story from the inside and how the story was changing.
By the time I was aware the story I was in was ‘The IRA want to eradicate my community’ (named ‘Protestants’ in the story). This was evidenced by the targets of their military campaign. There were Catholics also killed in these attacks but unfortunately, stories don’t do nuance as it distracts from the telling.
Each person that spoke I understood not just their dialect but the story from the inside.
I watch and have watched many situations across the globe as a spectator but in this story ‘Once upon a time in Northern Ireland’ I was a participant.
As the interviewees described scenes they were matched with my own, the straightforward, the complex, the nuanced. And when they felt I felt again my own pain and when they laughed I knew the medicine.
g
PS At the time of writing I had watched two episodes
PPS I watched the five episodes almost in one go. The next day (yesterday) I felt some of the feelings I would feel, years ago when living in NI, when something majorly traumatic happened in NI, sadness.
https://connect.open.ac.uk/history-and-the-arts/once-upon-a-time-in-northern-ireland
