peter mcknight

I was born in NI in 1972, the bloodiest year of what we call "The Troubles". I have watched everything I can and read many, many books on this topic. For me its a way of making sense of what must be an unavoidable collective psychosis. One way of avoiding being completely desensitized is to remind yourself of the sheer horror we endured, almost daily. If some of these stories and events don't continue to shock you, then I really don't know how we can have any hope. So, while the series of films doesn't really say anything new, or present any new footage (which can be no bad thing, really), what it does do, maybe better than anything I can recall seeing, is to bring some much needed humanity to the timeline. It does it respectfully; with insight and compassion and on occasion with humour. Some of the commentators I relate to more readily, but all of them moved me. It's as if the film makers took their lead from the writing on the wall of a bar in central Belfast; "A nation that keeps one eye on the past is wise. A nation that keeps both eyes on the past, is blind."