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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent

The Secret Army: how the IRA gave US crew access for 1972 propaganda film

IRA Martin McGuinness United States Muammar Gaddafi Derry CIA Viacom
The Secret Army shows Martin McGuinness, age 21, wearing a jumper over a shirt, sitting in a car with two boys leaning through the window and another peering through the windscreen
The documentary The Secret Army shows Martin McGuinness, age 21, prepping a car bomb and driving around Derry with weapons – evidence that could have locked him up. Photograph: BBC

In 1972, at the height of the Troubles, the Irish Republican Army allowed an American TV crew to film its members as they engaged in weapons training, patrols, gun battles and bombing missions across Northern Ireland.

The operations were real, not staged, and senior commanders appeared on camera without concealment. The TV crew shadowed one unit as it packed a car with explosives, drove it into the centre of Derry and detonated the bomb, injuring 26 people.

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