If you don't know the truth, you don't want to know the truth

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2023 

#10 : Once Upon A Time In Northern Ireland

In a year of hotly anticipated landmark TV franchises returning to our screens, no one expected one of the finest pieces of television to be a little-heralded documentary about the Troubles. Yet that’s exactly what Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland managed: a personal, soul-baring take on life in the country from 1969 to 1998 that is one of the most staggering achievements of the year. As paramilitaries on both sides shared their truths, it was a journey into trauma, regret, redemption, the terrifying ease with which civil war can spring up, and how there is always hope for peace – even when it seems impossible.

It might not surprise you to hear that the lovely Mrs Reed has already watched this - I'd heard the Once Upon A Time series is well done so I suspected I'd enjoy it and find it fascinating, but I gave it a swerve because I just felt it might have been slightly heavy going.  But here we are - I have to follow the list!

The whole season is well structured with (loosely) one episode each on how it all started, the height of the Troubles, the hunger strikes, the security forces and the Good Friday agreement.  Each period is discussed at a high level as a pretty dispassionate time line, with personal interviews interspersed throughout filling in the detail and giving you deep insight into how real people were (and continue to be affected) by their experiences.

The talking head style works really well and most people come across as very honest and thoughtful, not glorifying what they did or went through but describing objectively both how they felt then and how they feel now, often whilst viewing archive footage of themselves.  Yes, there may well be some bravado involved on some people's parts but there's plenty of other emotions on display including pride, shame and embarrassment - in some cases, there's also incomprehension that they were ever that person.  There's also a lot of black humour involved and an unbelievable amount of forgiveness in places as well - much more than I think I'd manage.  

Some of the situations discussed were, with the benefit of hindsight, utter lunacy and so obviously going to end badly eg in the 60s you only got to vote in elections if you owned a house.  Can you just imagine if they tried to implement that now?  The section on Bloody Sunday is particularly well done - I'm sure plenty of people will argue it wasn't balanced but as the whole thing shows, balance is a very subjective viewpoint.

There are some lovely stories amidst the gloom - Terri Hooley and his record shop and the stories from the Harp Bar are particularly heartwarming.  There are also some particularly horrific stories as well - there have been some absolutely dreadful things done in the name of religion over the years (and I realise this is in no way only related to Northern Ireland).  

If I had to quibble, I'd say that I appreciate they had to end it somewhere but I would have liked it to taking things up to the current day because it's certainly changed a lot in the time that I've been going over there and it would have interesting to get even more of the contrast (and Brexit must have had an interesting effect in some areas as well).  The other thing I picked up on was that it's got a very effective minimal score - which isn't something I'd usually notice so it's obviously well done.

It's not an easy watch (the lovely Mrs Reed found it very challenging in places) and obviously a lot of things are simplified, glossed over or simply omitted but, from a position of limited knowledge, I thought it did a good job in giving a good overview of a massively complicated situation which involves an awful lot of history and religion, with the use of personal interviews making the whole seem more relatable.  If you fancy a challenging but worthwhile watch, it's available on iPlayer - as is Once Upon A Time In Iraq which I'm tempted to check out as well.

#9 - Very good, I'm told
#11 - A slow burner, but well worth a watch