'Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland' To Air on PBS at the End of August

The Good Friday Agreement, signed in April 1998 and ratified by both Ireland and Northern Ireland by popular vote a month later in May 1998, marked the end of a long and turbulent history between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, which had been actively violent for the last 30 years since the end of the 1960s. With 2023 marking the 25th anniversary of those accords and enough time and space passed, the BBC commissioned a documentary series from the makers of the Oscar-winning Once Upon A Time in Iraq to trace recording history from those who lived through it. Called Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland, this five-part series will air on PBS just ahead of Labor Day.

The roots of the fight between the annexed section of Ireland and the stand-alone republic went back much further than the 1960s, to 1916 and the emergence of a free Irish Republic post World War I; some might even argue, further than that, back to when British (overwhelmingly Protestant) rule first was established over the mainly Catholic island. The bouts of violence sprang up as far back as 1609 when Scottish and English settlers were given land in the North Eastern part of the island in Ulster. Multiple civil wars broke out, with one side always fueled by the British forces.

The phrase "The Troubles" stems from the Edwardian era when the Irish Revolution began in 1912, which was interrupted in 1914 when WWI started and restarted in 1916. However, when people use the phrase today, they usually mean the more recent sectarian violence, dated to October 1968, when Derry marched for Irish Civil Rights. Over the next decade, a cycle of uprisings and backlash began, culminating in the 1972 event known as "Bloody Sunday." However, that wasn't the end, as waves of bombing, usually by the Irish Republican Army, hit Northern Ireland and London in the 1980s and lasted until the Peace Accords were signed.