In this blog post we want to introduce you to the vast range of resources held by JISC MediaHub which cover the period of the Irish Troubles and the peace process which followed.
JISC have just announced the launch of Chronicle, a joint project with the BUFVC and the BBC, to make BBC Northern Ireland’s television news from 1963 to 1976 available to the academic community online. Alongside this important new resource JISC MediaHub offers a wealth of images and video footage which extends coverage of the conflict in Northern Ireland through to the peace process and up to the present day. Many hours of news coverage are available from the ITV News Collection and the Channel 4 News Collection, as well as images from Getty.
Channel 4 News produced a fascinating background feature on the notorious Maze Prison, where paramilitary prisoners were held between 1971 and 2000. The film, made in July 2000, contains interviews with both ex-prisoners and prison staff and it is these first hand accounts of life in the Maze which make it so compelling.
Bill Clinton was the first US President to visit Northern Ireland in November 1995. The success of this and future visits contributed to him playing a key role in the peace process.
Hopes for the end to conflict were pinned to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998, however only a few months later the Omagh Bombing took place.
It would be nearly another nine years before a new power sharing government would be installed at Stormont.
Divided for years by sectarian hatred, Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness became political colleagues at the head of Northern Ireland’s new powersharing Government in May 2007: Northern Ireland Peace Process Has New Power-Sharing Government Sworn In: ITN 08-05-2007
These are just a few hightlights from the still images and many hours of news footage to be found on JISC MediaHub, documenting not just the key political negotiations but the testimony of ordinary people who lived through decades of terror.
Further Links:
- BBC: Northern Ireland: The Troubles
- BBC Timeline: Northern Ireland’s road to peace
- Insight on Conflict
- International Conflict Research Institute (INCORE) Univ of Ulster
- The Good Friday Agreement
- Guardian Article: IRA orders end to armed campaign
- Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission – Digital Film Archive and Creative Learning in the Digital Age