History UsefulNotes / TheTroubles

* ''Eureka Street'', the novel by Northern Irish author Robert McLiam Wilson,is set in Belfast during UsefulNotes/TheNineties, the shortly before the ceasefire is declared. The protagonists are a Catholic and a Protestant thirty-something who despite the Troubles have a lifelong friendship.

* The 2013 BBC Northern Ireland series ''Series/TheFall'' features a London detective superintendent being sent to Belfast to help the local police track down a serial killer, with the Troubles providing a constant backdrop (including a memorial plaque to police officers murdered during the conflict displayed in their headquarters).

* In the final episode of the original ''Series/{{Columbo}}'' series, "The Conspirators", the villain is an IRA gun-runner named Joe Devlin, played by Clive Revill. He's portrayed as a philosophical KnightTemplar, who works as a poet and author in his legitimate life. He also raises funds for an organization called American Friends of Northern Ireland, which is more-or-less an {{Expy}} of NORAID (with the fact that the money really goes to the IRA being less of an OpenSecret than in real life). The [[AlwaysMurder requisite murder]] is of an ArmsDealer, who was planning to take Devlin's money and flee the country.

By the early 1990s, public opinion on both sides had soured on the continued strife. What is widely believed to be TheLastStraw was the second Warrington bombing on 20 February 1993. IRA-supported terrorists exploded two bombs in Warrington, Cheshire, England. The only fatalities were two children. Although there were some loyalist reprisals in the immediate aftermath, by that point both sides had decided enough was enough and it was time to end the war, the IRA having lost their backers in Libya after the end of the Cold War, riddled with informants (the head of their "internal security", tasked with killing informers was actually himself an informer) and outkilled by the Loyalists by the 90s. By the Omagh Bombing in August of 1998, the tide had almost entirely turned. The Provisional IRA had declared a cease-fire in July of 1997, Sinn Fein had been admitted to the peace talks, and in April of 1998 the Good Friday Agreement had been created. The Real IRA splinter group carried out the Omagh bombing, but in the aftermath, and in the face of local, national and international outrage[[note]]in part because, not knowing ''where'' the bomb was that they had been warned of, the [=RUC=] had inadvertently evacuated people ''towards'' the bomb, which contributed to making it the deadliest single incident of The Troubles[[/note]] they issued a denial that the bomb had been intended to cause civilian casualties and actually ''apologised'', declaring a cease-fire themselves not long after.\\

* ''Bloody Sunday (2002)'', an acclaimed TV film turned cinematic film and one of many works on the eponymous topic, the shooting of 13 people by British soldiers (the inquiry on which finished in June 2010, 38 years after the event). A demonstration on why it is not a good idea to do riot control using pissed off military types and live ammunition. It notably features a lone sympathetic British soldier, the officer in charge of the unit doing the shooting that realizes too late that his men are shooting civilians and has to watch in real time as they [[BelievingTheirOwnLies convince themselves that they were shooting gunmen]] while returning to base.

** Both the IRA and the loyalist militants turn up as frequent enemies of Kev, Ennis' ex-British S.A.S character, who was demobbed after various activities during the Troubles that earned him a death sentence from both sides and who routinely send assassins out to kill him. Unfortunately for Kev, they have a tendency to surprise him just when it's most inconvenient for him (when he's sitting on the toilet, having sex or on ADateWithRosiePalms). Unfortunately for ''them'', they're either spectacularly incompetent, outclassed by Kev ''despite'' these handicaps, or attack him at the same time as one of their bitter enemies, resulting in them just killing each other instead.

* Creator/BillyConnolly's "Sergeant Where's Mine?" is partly a JoinTheArmyTheySaid lament that he's not getting the "computers, sunshine and skis" promised in the recruitment material, and partly horror at where he's found himself instead. "And what can ye dae wi a gun in yer hand, when yer facin a hundred-odd weans?"

* In ''Film/BlownAway'', the bad guy (played by Creator/TommyLeeJones) was an [=IRA=] bomber who escaped prison and went to the US to get revenge on a Boston bomb-disposal expert (Creator/JeffBridges).
** It turns out that [[spoiler: the hero had been the villain's friend and protege (and was even dating the villain's sister). The villain sought revenge because the hero had attempted to stop one of his bombs from going off as it was near children, resulting in the death of the sister/girlfriend, the imprisonment of the villain and the hero fleeing to America to start a new life.]]

* Creator/FrankHerbert's ''The White Plague'', where the premise is that a biologist loses his wife and son to a bombing during this time period. His response is to plot a RoaringRampageOfRevenge [[DisproportionateRetribution and try to wipe out humanity.]]

Violence increased through TheSeventies with the British government continually releasing IRA prisoners in a disastrous attempt at appeasement (as they had in 1919-21). By the late 70s they abandoned this policy and sought military victory, halving the number of murders in 1977 and reducing it to double figures the next year for the first time in nearly a decade. By TheEighties the violence had been reduced to a fraction of what it had been, reaching a low of 57 in the mid-eighties (as opposed to over 400 in 1972). Elements of the security forces colluded with loyalists, allowing them to target suspected IRA members rather than just random Catholics/Nationalists. In a spectacular own goal the IRA demanded an investigation into such activities but with the security forces' informers within the Loyalists arrested the number of Nationalists killed by them tripled, outkilling the IRA for the first time in the 90s. Many of the controversial features of UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror -- the renditions, the torture, the detentions without charge or trial, and the like -- saw their bloody precursors here. Gradually, both sides became more extreme. Some branches of the IRA now began to target civilians on the British mainland, and loyalists, aided by a branch of MI5 known as the FRU began an assassination campaign, killing actual civilians in retaliation for IRA murders. Riots were common, and a Berlin-style system of walls and checkpoints was enforced in Belfast and Derry to keep the feuding communities apart. The IRA became ever more brazen, killing Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, naval war hero and mentor to (and great-uncle of) Prince Charles, on his fishing boat off the coast of County Sligo in 1979 (and it's something of a ShootTheShaggyDog story -- Mountbatten was ''favorable'' to the Irish cause[[note]]In 2007, Irish State papers revealed he had gone so far as to offer his services to the Irish ambassador in London, as an intermediary in 1972; this wasn't public knowledge at the time of his death.[[/note]]), and nearly doing in UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher, then in Brighton for a 1984 Tory convention (though with five deaths). The Loyalists paid them back in kind, killing over 40 people in a single day of bomb attacks in Dublin and Monaghan\\

The Good Friday Agreement was signed at Stormont in 1998, and a devolved Northern Irish administration was established, where republicans and unionists could settle their differences at the ballot box. British troops left Ireland, leaving behind the 19th Light Brigade, which has no operative role. The IRA formally declared an end to its armed campaign in 2005, having decommissioned its weapons in that same year. The UsefulNotes/TonyBlair cabinet agreed to hold an inquiry into Bloody Sunday. The largest and costliest investigation in British legal history, it delivered its final verdict in 2010, declaring that the paratroopers defied orders in entering republican patches of Londonderry and acted unlawfully in opening fire. However it also established beyond doubt that there were numerous armed IRA members in the Bogside, several of who admitted firing on the soldiers. UsefulNotes/DavidCameron delivered a formal apology on behalf of the British government, to applause from Republican crowds in Derry. Unionists by contrast consider Bloody Sunday to have been given undue attention in comparison to many more terrorist murders both before and after and propose a blanket amnesty for the security forces actions' during the Troubles, pointing out the hypocrisy of the IRA using the British justice system they tried to destroy to gain revenge on those who defeated them.[[/folder]]

One Sunday -- January 30, 1972 -- the Parachute Regiment, fired on a man in Londonderry whom they thought was a nail bomber (he later admitted he was picking up a smoking object but denied it was a nail bomb). IRA gunmen fired on the Army who shot back, killing eleven more and wounding several others, one of whom later died from injuries. This was "Bloody Sunday", the DarkestHour of the conflict and a black eye to the face of the British Armed Forces.[[note]]But only ''one'' of the ''three'' Irish Bloody Sundays, and only one of the ''two'' that involve British forces opening fire on civilians [[/note]] The tragedy led to a surge in popular support, at home and abroad, for the IRA. Prior to this whole sections of Derry declared themselves "free", rejecting British rule and attacking any official representative that dared trespass, murdering 27 people in Londonderry in the year before Bloody Sunday (out of over 100 killed in the wider conflict), incensing Irish Unionists who considered Bloody Sunday justified retribution against the IRA. The Army later used tanks to destroy the "No Go" areas and restore law and order, forcing the IRA to flee to the nearby Republic of Ireland, where it established training camps, bomb factories, recruited volunteers, and undertook legal and illegal venues in raising funds to carry out its armed campaign. Money was also contributed to the IRA coffers from Irish communities in America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, although such funds were actually ''tiny'' compared to legal and illegal activities undertaken by IRA members in Ireland, such as [[Main/ProtectionRacket protection rackets]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackney_carriage#Black_cabs black taxies]], [[Main/MyLocal pub-owning]],[[Main/CounterfeitCash counterfeit]], [[Main/BankRobbery bank robberies]], and [[Main/TheCon fraud]]. The Eastern Bloc, seeing [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar an opportunity to harm Western interests and destabilize a critical American ally]], began funding the far-left republican groups. Later, in revenge for the US bombing of Tripoli (launched from British bases), UsefulNotes/MuammarGaddafi greatly increased his already substantial backing for the IRA (notorious for sponsoring numerous European and Middle Eastern terrorist groups such as Action Direct, the Red Brigades, ETA etc).\\

One Sunday -- January 30, 1972 -- the Parachute Regiment, fired on man in Londonderry whom they thought was a nail bomber (he later admitted he was picking up a smoking object but denied it was a nail bomb). IRA gunmen fired on the Army who shot back, killing eleven more and wounding several others, one of whom later died from injuries. This was "Bloody Sunday", the DarkestHour of the conflict and a black eye to the face of the British Armed Forces.[[note]]But only ''one'' of the ''three'' Irish Bloody Sundays, and only one of the ''two'' that involve British forces opening fire on civilians [[/note]] The tragedy led to a surge in popular support, at home and abroad, for the IRA. Prior to this whole sections of Derry declared themselves "free", rejecting British rule and attacking any official representative that dared trespass, murdering 27 people in Londonderry in the year before Bloody Sunday (out of over 100 killed in the wider conflict), incensing Irish Unionists who considered Bloody Sunday justified retribution against the IRA. The Army later used tanks to destroy the "No Go" areas and restore law and order. Money started flowing in from American donors to the IRA. The Eastern Bloc, seeing [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar an opportunity to harm Western interests and destabilize a critical American ally]], began funding the far-left republican groups. Later, in revenge for the US bombing of Tripoli (launched from British bases), UsefulNotes/MuammarGaddafi greatly increased his already substantial backing for the IRA (notorious for sponsoring numerous European and Middle Eastern terrorist groups such as Action Direct, the Red Brigades, ETA etc).\\

Violence increased through TheSeventies with the British government continually releasing IRA prisoners in a disastrous attempt at appeasement (as they had in 1919-21). By the late 70s they abandoned this policy and sought military victory, halving the number of murders in 1977 and reducing it to double figures the next year for the first time in nearly a decade. By TheEighties the violence had been reduced to a fraction of what it had been, reaching a low of 57 in the mid- eighties (as opposed to over 400 in 1972). Elements of the security forces colluded with loyalists, allowing them to kill the actual IRA rather than just random Catholics/Nationalists. In a spectacular own goal the IRA demanded an investigation into such activities but with the security forces' informers within the Loyalists arrested the number of Nationalists killed by them tripled, outkilling the IRA for the first time in the 90s. Many of the controversial features of UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror -- the renditions, the torture, the detentions without charge or trial, and the like -- saw their bloody precursors here. Gradually, both sides became more extreme. Some branches of the IRA now began to target civilians on the British mainland, and loyalists, aided by a branch of MI5 known as the FRU began an assassination campaign, killing suspected IRA members in retaliation for IRA murders. Riots were common, and a Berlin-style system of walls and checkpoints was enforced in Belfast and Derry to keep the feuding communities apart. The IRA became ever more brazen, killing Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, naval war hero and mentor to (and great-uncle of) Prince Charles, on his fishing boat off the coast of County Sligo in 1979 (and it's something of a ShootTheShaggyDog story -- Mountbatten was ''favorable'' to the Irish cause[[note]]In 2007, Irish State papers revealed he had gone so far as to offer his services to the Irish ambassador in London, as an intermediary in 1972; this wasn't public knowledge at the time of his death.[[/note]]), and nearly doing in UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher, then in Brighton for a 1984 Tory convention (though with five deaths). The Loyalists paid them back in kind, killing over 40 people in a single day of bomb attacks in Dublin and Monaghan\\

In 1981, 10 internees went on hunger strike in the Long Kesh internment camp protesting their poor treatment and demanding prisoner-of-war status. Hunger striker Bobby Sands was elected to parliament, and after his death protests and memorials took place throughout the world - particularly in America and former Nazi-occupied countries such as France (the IRA supporting the Nazis in the Second World War and even hiding their war criminals afterwards). Unionists despised Nationalists for their sympathy with men whom they considered simply sectarian murderers and callous disregard for their victims. In 1985, the Anglo-Irish Agreement gave Dublin a "consultative role" in the government of Northern Ireland, to outrage by the Loyalists and Unionists but to no real effect.\\

In 1981, 10 internees went on hunger strike in the Long Kesh internment camp protesting their poor treatment and demanding prisoner-of-war status. Hunger striker Bobby Sands was elected to parliament, and after his death protests and memorials took place throughout the world - particularly in America and former Nazi-occupied countries such as France (the IRA supporting the Nazis in the Second World War and even hiding their war criminals afterwards). In 1985, the Anglo-Irish Agreement gave Dublin a "consultative role" in the government of Northern Ireland, to outrage by the Loyalists and Unionists but to no real effect.\\

Violence increased through TheSeventies with the British government continually releasing IRA prisoners in a disastrous attempt at appeasement (as they had in 1919-21). By the late 70s they abandoned this policy and sought military victory, halving the number of murders in 1977 and reducing it to double figures the next year for the first time in nearly a decade. By TheEighties the violence had been reduced to a fraction of what it had been, reaching a low of 57 in the mid- eighties (as opposed to over 400 in 1972). Elements of the security forces colluded with loyalists, allowing them to kill the actual IRA rather than just random Catholics/Nationalists. In a spectacular own goal the IRA demanded an investigation into such activities but with the security forces' informers within the Loyalists arrested the number of Nationalists killed by them tripled, outkilling the IRA for the first time in the 90s. Many of the controversial features of UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror -- the renditions, the torture, the detentions without charge or trial, and the like -- saw their bloody precursors here. Gradually, both sides became more extreme. Some branches of the IRA now began to target civilians on the British mainland, and loyalists, aided by a branch of MI5 known as the FRU began a pogrom, killing suspected IRA members in retaliation for IRA murders. Riots were common, and a Berlin-style system of walls and checkpoints was enforced in Belfast and Derry to keep the feuding communities apart. The IRA became ever more brazen, killing Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, naval war hero and mentor to (and great-uncle of) Prince Charles, on his fishing boat off the coast of County Sligo in 1979 (and it's something of a ShootTheShaggyDog story -- Mountbatten was ''favorable'' to the Irish cause[[note]]In 2007, Irish State papers revealed he had gone so far as to offer his services to the Irish ambassador in London, as an intermediary in 1972; this wasn't public knowledge at the time of his death.[[/note]]), and nearly doing in UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher, then in Brighton for a 1984 Tory convention (though with five deaths). The Loyalists paid them back in kind, killing over 40 people in a single day of bomb attacks in Dublin and Monaghan\\

In 1981, 10 internees went on hunger strike in the Long Kesh internment camp protesting their poor treatment and demanding prisoner-of-war status. Hunger striker Bobby Sands was elected to parliament, and after his death protests and memorials took place throughout the world - particularly in America and former Nazi-occupied countries such as France (the IRA supporting the Nazis in the Second World War). In 1985, the Anglo-Irish Agreement gave Dublin a "consultative role" in the government of Northern Ireland, to outrage by the Loyalists and Unionists but to no real effect.\\

* ''Film/SeventyOne'': A rookie British soldier on patrol in Belfast, 1971, gets separated from his unit during a riot and gets tangled up in the conflict. Notable for showing all sides as heinous, with the British Army being most sympathetic in that they're horribly naive bunglers rather than active murderers.

* Northern Irish punk band Music/StiffLittleFingers early songs were frequently about The Troubles, although they supported neither side and decried violence from all terrorist groups, the RUC and the British Army.

* In ''FanFic/{{Emperor}}'', the Troubles are more or less controlled... but at the price of Northern Ireland pretty much becoming a military state.

* Season 4 of ''Series/TheCrown2016'' opens with the assassination of Lord Mountbatten by the IRA bombing his yacht, with Margaret Thatcher swearing revenge before the Queen.

* The first episode of ''Series/TheCrown2016'' Season 4 shows the assassination of Lord Mountbatten by the IRA with Prime Margeret Thatcher vowing to the Queen that she will defeat the IRA.

* ''Film/SeventyOne'': A rookie British soldier on patrol in Belfast, 1971, gets separated from his unit during a riot and gets tangled up in the conflict. Notable for showing all sides as heinous, with the British Army being most sympathetic in being horribly naive bunglers.

* ''Film/SeventyOne'': A rookie British soldier on patrol in Belfast, 1971, gets separated from his squad during a riot.

* ''Film/TheDevilsOwn'', in which Creator/BradPitt plays an IRA member sent to the US to acquire surface-to-air missiles from an arms dealer, while staying as the guest of a New York City cop (Creator/HarrisonFord). It especially shows the IRA's support among many Irish-Americans, though doesn't portray this as a good thing.

%%* Ken Loach's film ''Film/HiddenAgenda''.

* ''BloodySunday'', an acclaimed TV film turned cinematic film and one of many works on the eponymous topic, the shooting of 13 people by British soldiers (the inquiry on which finished in June 2010, 38 years after the event). A demonstration on why it is not a good idea to do riot control using pissed off military types and live ammunition. It notably features a lone sympathetic British soldier, the officer in charge of the unit doing the shooting that realizes too late that his men are shooting civilians and has to watch in real time as they [[BelievingTheirOwnLies convince themselves that they were shooting gunmen]] while returning to base.

* ''Film/BloodySunday'', an acclaimed TV film turned cinematic film and one of many works on the eponymous topic, the shooting of 13 people by British soldiers (the inquiry on which finished in June 2010, 38 years after the event). A demonstration on why it is not a good idea to do riot control using pissed off military types and live ammunition.
* In ''Film/BlownAway'', the bad guy (played by Creator/TommyLeeJones) was an [=IRA=] bomber who escaped prison and went to the US to get revenge on a Boston bomb-disposal expert (Creator/JeffBridges).

* Belfast-born comic writer Creator/GarthEnnis has mined the setting for all its worth, starting from his earliest strip ''Troubled Souls''. His views on Irish-Americans who supported the IRA can be seen in a ''[[Comicbook/ThePunisherMAX Punisher MAX]]'' story "Kitchen Irish", where one such man spots an evil disfigured terrorist (thanks to an "own goal" premature detonation) and gets the whole bar to raise a glass to the man's struggles... which directly leads to him being used as a hostage and human shield ''by'' said terrorist.

One Sunday -- January 30, 1972 -- the Parachute Regiment, fired on man in Londonderry whom they thought was a nail bomber (he later admitted he was picking up a smoking object but denied it was a nail bomb). IRA gunmen fired on the Army who shot back, killing eleven more and wounding several others, one of whom later died from injuries. This was "Bloody Sunday", the DarkestHour of the conflict and a black eye to the face of the British Armed Forces.[[note]]But only ''one'' of the three Irish Bloody Sundays, and only one of the ''two'' that involve British forces opening fire on civilians [[/note]] The tragedy led to a surge in popular support, at home and abroad, for the IRA. Prior to this whole sections of Derry declared themselves "free", rejecting British rule and attacking any official representative that dared trespass, murdering 27 people in Londonderry in the year before Bloody Sunday (out of over 100 killed in the wider conflict), incensing Irish Unionists who considered Bloody Sunday justified retribution against the IRA. The Army later used tanks to destroy the "No Go" areas and restore law and order. Money started flowing in from American donors to the IRA. The Eastern Bloc, seeing [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar an opportunity to harm Western interests and destabilize a critical American ally]], began funding the far-left republican groups. Later, in revenge for the US bombing of Tripoli (launched from British bases), UsefulNotes/MuammarGaddafi greatly increased his already substantial backing for the IRA (notorious for sponsoring numerous European and Middle Eastern terrorist groups such as Action Direct, the Red Brigades, ETA etc).\\