How does a country descend into civil war? It’s easier than you may think. At various points between 1969 and 1998, it nearly happened in Britain. There have been many TV tellings of the Troubles: good ones too, offering political and historical analysis of the seemingly intractable sectarian conflict that scarred late 20th-century Northern Ireland. James Bluemel’s remarkable five-part series was the first to present an emotional history; a trajectory of events that can be understood via the feelings of the people involved. This was the most important TV series of the year: a road map of how conflict begins and, crucially, how it can end. Parts of it will lodge in your brain like shrapnel.
Through Bluemel’s gentle but persistent probing, the process of radicalisation was laid out with horrible clarity. We began with footage of mid-60s Northern Ireland: people having fun at holiday camps; shopping, sporting recognisable, era-specific haircuts and fashions. The rioting that arose in Catholic communities out of a series of marches in protest at Northern Ireland’s unfair voting system, was viewed simply as “a good craic” by some participants.
