Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland

Growing up in 80s in Dublin this was just something that was happening on the news. This brought the reality home to me for the first time. Two hours up the road was so far away back then. This is possibly the most important thing I have ever watched on tv. Mind blowing insight into the ordinary peoples lives at the time. I knew all of these story's but not like this. The emotion of the people talking about the time and the journeys they have been on are incredible. This should be shown to kids all over the world to show how division in a community can bring such hate and murder to the most ordinary of people.

Wow, what a find. First its a wonderful history of the "troubles" - if you want know the background of how it all started, the conflicting beliefs and views and where all the anger came from it does a great job. But the real tribute to this production is how it does it. Interviewing all sides, exploring all the different perspectives and revealing all the pain, anger and suffering on all sides. The futility of all this hate and violence, the unbearable suffering and pain inflicted by all parties on each other - the sheer waste of so much life. A truly remarkable insight into this terrible period of life in this part of the world. A must watch.

I very much enjoyed this series.

I remember as a child watching the nightly news reports on the conflict and growing up in England, how we were targets for the IRA.

Many British cities were targeted by the IRA, including my own, in the Birmingham pub bombings.

The participants interviewed provided their view on events in Northern Ireland. Recollections from UDA, IRA, UFF and members of the British army, amongst others, are provided.

I felt their views came across as honest. There are many harrowing recollections of family members murdered by different factions and how they themselves took part in murder and bombings.

It also shows how people can change and how the Irish population were eventually ground down by the whole thing. Thankfully, the peace process was eventually achieved.

The conflict will stay in my memory as a horrible dirty war, with atrocities carried out by all sides, and for what?

Terrascotia has taken the trouble in this forum to make a strong argument against this series. I respect that person's point of view but I profoundly disagree with those conclusions.

My wife and I finished watching the series last night and we have both urged our children and others to watch it. We are both 69 years old and lived through the events in Belfast and in Derry.

I never felt that watching this was providing vicarious thrills. Rather I felt that this format presented vividly the experiences of individuals from different traditions in ways which seemed very fresh and honest. There was no attempt to provide a detailed history - this was done very well in the Spotlight series - here it was all about what the Troubles really meant to different people at the time and in retrospect. Some of it was very difficult to listen to but so worthwhile.

Making it about individuals, not just 'sides'. I was grateful for this timely reminder of how awful things were / still are in some ways and especially for giving a voice to victims who tend to be conveniently forgotten in the rush to garner votes.

I was born in the 70s and grew up as a child in the 80s in the United States. I am an American of primarily Northern Irish (and British) ancestry, and when hearing news stories about bombings and violence I remember thinking how horrible these people who could have easily been my family if they had stayed. But I was a kid it was across the pond so whatever so I forgot five minutes after heading the news story.

I thought the approach to the film, a 5 part series of slow interviews, was a snooze fest at first. But as you watch the series, you realize how the Troubles went from isolated events that didn't register to families and communities being torn apart. It really builds and drives home the point that these were just ordinary people.

Really enjoyed this and learned a lot.