The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "irregular war" or "low-level war". The conflict began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group based in Northern Ireland. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former Royal Ulster Rifles soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook an armed campaign of almost thirty years during The Troubles. It declared a ceasefire in 1994 and officially ended its campaign in 2007, although some of its members have continued to engage in violence and criminal activities. The group is a proscribed organisation and is on the terrorist organisation list of the United Kingdom.
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, was a loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader from Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2007 to 2008.
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley Jr is a British unionist politician. A member of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), he has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Antrim since the 2010 general election, and was previously a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for North Antrim from 1998 to 2010. Paisley is the DUP's Spokesperson for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports. He is a son of the DUP's founder Ian Paisley.
The Northern Ireland peace process includes the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and subsequent political developments.
Martin Dillon is an Irish author, journalist, and broadcaster. He has won international acclaim for his investigative reporting and non-fiction works on The Troubles, including his bestselling trilogy, The Shankill Butchers, The Dirty War and God and the Gun, about the Northern Ireland conflict. The historian and scholar, Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien, described him as "our Virgil to that Inferno". The Irish Times hailed him as "one of the most creative writers of our time".
Colin Murray is a Northern Irish radio and television presenter. He is best known for hosting the Channel 4 game show Countdown.
William James Nesbitt is an actor from Northern Ireland.
Patrick Kielty is a comedian, presenter and actor from Northern Ireland. He is the host of The Late Late Show on RTÉ One and presents a Saturday morning programme on BBC Radio 5 Live. His television credits include the BBC's Patrick Kielty Almost Live and Channel 4's Last Chance Lottery. He has also presented ITV's Love Island and This Morning.
"Teenage Kicks" is the debut single by Northern Irish punk rock band the Undertones. Written in the summer of 1977 by J.J. O'Neill, the band's rhythm guitarist and principal songwriter, the song was recorded on 15 June 1978 and initially released that September on independent Belfast record label Good Vibrations, before the band signed to Sire Records on 2 October 1978. Sire Records subsequently obtained all copyrights to the material released upon the Teenage Kicks EP and the song was re-released as a standard vinyl single on Sire's own label on 14 October that year, reaching number 31 in the UK Singles Chart two weeks after its release
Paul Marquess is a television producer from Belfast, Northern Ireland. His credits include Brookside, The Bill, Family Affairs, Hollyoaks, Crime Stories, Suspects and Hope Street. He also originated the idea for the series Footballers' Wives. He currently holds the post of managing director of Newman Street, a label of Fremantlemedia.
Terrorism in the United Kingdom, according to the Home Office, poses a significant threat to the state. There have been various causes of terrorism in the UK. Before the 2000s, most attacks were linked to the Northern Ireland conflict. In the late 20th century there were also attacks by Islamic terrorist groups. Since 1970, there have been at least 3,395 terrorist-related deaths in the UK, the highest in western Europe. The vast majority of the deaths were linked to the Northern Ireland conflict and happened in Northern Ireland. In mainland Great Britain, there were 430 terrorist-related deaths between 1971 and 2001. Of these, 125 deaths were linked to the Northern Ireland conflict, and 305 deaths were linked to other causes, including 270 in the Lockerbie bombing. Since 2001, there have been almost 100 terrorist-related deaths in Great Britain.
The Ballymurphy massacre was a series of incidents between 9 and 11 August 1971, in which the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment of the British Army killed eleven civilians in Ballymurphy, Belfast, Northern Ireland, as part of Operation Demetrius. The shootings were later referred to as Belfast's Bloody Sunday, a reference to the killing of civilians by the same battalion in Derry a few months later. The 1972 inquests had returned an open verdict on all of the killings, but a 2021 coroner's report found that all those killed had been innocent and that the killings were "without justification".
Simon Russell is a British composer for TV and film.
From October 1988 to September 1994 the British government banned broadcasts of the voices of representatives from Sinn Féin and several Irish republican and loyalist groups on television and radio in the United Kingdom (UK). The restrictions, announced by the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, on 19 October 1988, covered eleven organisations based in Northern Ireland. The ban followed a heightened period of violence in the course of the Troubles, and reflected the UK government's belief in a need to prevent Sinn Féin from using the media for political advantage.
Derry Girls is a British teen sitcom set in Northern Ireland, created and written by Lisa McGee, that premiered on 4 January 2018 on Channel 4 and ran for three series. The channel's most successful comedy since Father Ted, the series was inspired by McGee's own experiences growing up in Derry, Northern Ireland, in the 1990s, during the final years of the Troubles. It stars Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Louisa Harland, Nicola Coughlan, Jamie-Lee O'Donnell, and Dylan Llewellyn as five teenagers living in mid-1990s Derry while attending Our Lady Immaculate College, a fictional girls' Catholic secondary school based on the real-life Thornhill College, where McGee herself studied. Produced by British production company Hat Trick Productions, Derry Girls was filmed in Northern Ireland, with most scenes shot on location in Derry and some in Belfast.
James Bluemel is a television documentary filmmaker.
Once Upon a Time in Iraq is a 2020 British documentary television miniseries directed by James Bluemel and narrated by the British-Iraqi actor Andy Serkis. Composed of five episodes, it features interviews with Iraqi citizens, American military personnel and international journalists about the Iraqi conflict and its effects on the Iraqi people.
DynastiesII is a 2022 British nature documentary series commissioned by the BBC and narrated by David Attenborough. It is the sequel to Dynasties (2018) and was announced via a press release on 28 December 2020.
Blue Lights is a television drama series, set in Belfast, Northern Ireland, following three probationary police officers of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the experienced officers who train, mentor, and work with them. The series was broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, premiering on 27 March 2023; it has been re-commissioned for a second series, which began filming in 2023, as well as a third and fourth series.
