0:00:02 > 0:00:06This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting
0:00:06 > 0:00:08The Royal Ulster Constabulary are hunting the IRA killers...
0:00:08 > 0:00:10Mrs Thatcher has called the men who run the army...
0:00:10 > 0:00:13The bomb was one of the biggest in the city for years...
0:00:13 > 0:00:17Politicians from all parties have condemned...
0:00:17 > 0:00:19The Guildford Four...
0:00:19 > 0:00:23NEWS STORIES PLAY ALL AT ONCE
0:00:23 > 0:00:25..our correspondent Denis Murray.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29..is from our Ireland correspondent, Denis Murray.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35When I became the BBC's Ireland Correspondent,
0:00:35 > 0:00:39I didn't realise quite how much of my life would be spent talking to the camera like this.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42I'm Denis Murray, and for 20 years I had the privilege
0:00:42 > 0:00:46of reporting my own place to the rest of the UK and the world.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50I'd grown up with the history and the complexities,
0:00:50 > 0:00:52and I'd reported within Northern Ireland.
0:00:52 > 0:00:56My job now was to explain it without over-simplifying
0:00:56 > 0:01:00and in a way that would get the attention of people elsewhere.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12Northern Ireland was dominated by the bomb and the bullet.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15Nothing seemed to have changed across two decades.
0:01:15 > 0:01:20So naturally the coverage was dominated by violence.
0:01:23 > 0:01:28As a result, the reporting of the Troubles had become almost formulaic.
0:01:28 > 0:01:30Another shooting, another bombing.
0:01:30 > 0:01:34It would have been easy to fill in the location, the time and whether there were any dead.
0:01:34 > 0:01:36In fact, there were so many attacks,
0:01:36 > 0:01:42it's hardly surprising a lot of the reports looked and sounded the same.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46It got to the point where your life wasn't your own.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49What you did was dictated completely by the news agenda.
0:01:49 > 0:01:51SIREN WAILS
0:01:58 > 0:02:03This is the edit suite in which I spent a large part of my working life.
0:02:03 > 0:02:07And I suppose you were semi-aware at the time that you were reporting history.
0:02:07 > 0:02:10These programmes are in no sense intended to be
0:02:10 > 0:02:14any kind of formal history of the Troubles and the peace process.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16What I'm trying to do is show you what it was like
0:02:16 > 0:02:20to be a close-up eyewitness to those events.
0:02:20 > 0:02:25Because I suppose what we reported and how we reported it, more importantly,
0:02:25 > 0:02:27became part of it all.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30Reports are coming in of a bomb in Northern Ireland.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34First reports indicate that five soldiers have been killed and up to 11 people injured.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38The three people who died were driving north after their holiday.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42It is believed the bomb was in a derelict house beside the main Dublin to Belfast road.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46The news tonight is dominated by the murder of eight young soldiers,
0:02:46 > 0:02:48their bus blown up by the IRA.
0:02:48 > 0:02:50I'd been a journalist more than ten years,
0:02:50 > 0:02:54but nothing - nothing - had prepared me for this horror.
0:02:54 > 0:02:56It wasn't just the nature of the events,
0:02:56 > 0:02:59it was the sheer scale of what was happening.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02It was relentless, non-stop, daily.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05One night, not long into the job,
0:03:05 > 0:03:06I was with a group of other journalists
0:03:06 > 0:03:09when everyone's bleepers began to go off at once.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13None of us knew what had happened, but clearly it was serious.
0:03:13 > 0:03:18At that stage, my reaction was, find out what had happened and get there.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21As the years went on, I dreaded the phone ringing,
0:03:21 > 0:03:25because as often as not it was something on this scale.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35When I arrived, the night and the surroundings,
0:03:35 > 0:03:37like the situation, were dark.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39The bright lights on top of the camera,
0:03:39 > 0:03:43used so we could actually film, felt like an intrusion.
0:03:43 > 0:03:45The gaping hole in the side of the road,
0:03:45 > 0:03:48the wrecked bus blown some distance away,
0:03:48 > 0:03:53and, as so often, that eerie quiet despite the presence of so many soldiers and police.
0:03:53 > 0:03:58While the rest of the country slept, the sense of so many lives shattered,
0:03:58 > 0:04:02not just the dead but their families as well, was palpable.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07Early this morning, the IRA blew up a bus carrying soldiers
0:04:07 > 0:04:11back from leave to their barracks at Omagh in County Tyrone.
0:04:11 > 0:04:16Our first report is from our Ireland correspondent, Denis Murray.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20The soldiers' bus was only nine miles from its destination in Omagh
0:04:20 > 0:04:23when the IRA bomb, planted at the side of the road
0:04:23 > 0:04:26only a short time earlier, exploded,
0:04:26 > 0:04:29ripping through the near side of the vehicle.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32The road where the attack took place is isolated,
0:04:32 > 0:04:34but local people flocked to help.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38I went down to the bus, and there was bodies on one side of the road,
0:04:38 > 0:04:44a body round this lamp post here, and bodies all over the place.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47And we started then to get into the bus and drag bodies out.
0:04:47 > 0:04:52It was terrible. It was... It just... I can't explain it.
0:04:52 > 0:04:56It was something I have never seen before and never want to see again.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00I was the first journalist that local man had spoken to,
0:05:00 > 0:05:03and because of what had happened and because of what he'd seen,
0:05:03 > 0:05:06he was bitterly angry.
0:05:06 > 0:05:08He wasn't really angry with me but quite often,
0:05:08 > 0:05:12people got rid of their feelings on the first reporter they saw.
0:05:12 > 0:05:16He agreed to an interview and as soon as the camera was switched on,
0:05:16 > 0:05:20the anger disappeared and suddenly, he was just an upset human being.
0:05:20 > 0:05:24But I couldn't allow myself to stay involved in that tragedy.
0:05:24 > 0:05:26I had to throw some sort of mental switch
0:05:26 > 0:05:29and become the dispassionate reporter again.
0:05:30 > 0:05:35By 1988, most people in Britain were sick and tired of the Troubles.
0:05:35 > 0:05:39To most people in England, Scotland and Wales they were just a background noise,
0:05:39 > 0:05:43but they were the very people to whom I'd be telling the story.
0:05:43 > 0:05:47Because British soldiers were killed, there might be more interest than usual.
0:05:47 > 0:05:49That sounds shocking, but it's true.
0:05:49 > 0:05:50It's all so only human.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54How many of us remember just how many people have been killed by car bombs in Baghdad?
0:05:54 > 0:05:58People in Northern Ireland thought everybody was fascinated by the Troubles
0:05:58 > 0:06:02but they weren't - they just wished the whole thing would go away.
0:06:05 > 0:06:08Inevitably, there were calls for internment.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12A key part of my role was this - I couldn't just report on events,
0:06:12 > 0:06:15I had to be the BBC's commentator as well.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18On air, I said internment wasn't going to happen
0:06:18 > 0:06:22because it had proved such a disaster before.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25But the Government had to be seen to be doing something.
0:06:25 > 0:06:27'The Six O'Clock News from the BBC.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33'Good evening. The headlines at six o'clock -
0:06:33 > 0:06:37'The government has banned Irish terrorists and their close supporters
0:06:37 > 0:06:40'from being heard on British television and radio.'
0:06:40 > 0:06:44'Sinn Fein held a news conference in West Belfast today to give its view.
0:06:44 > 0:06:49'This morning, we were able to broadcast the comments of Gerry Adams. Tonight, we cannot.'
0:06:49 > 0:06:51I hated the restrictions.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54They got massively in the way of being able to tell the whole truth.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57Even so, you got the impression that Sinn Fein
0:06:57 > 0:07:00weren't as angry as they might have been.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03After all, it was another injustice to complain about.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07EXPLOSION
0:07:07 > 0:07:11'1988 has seen the most ferocious IRA campaign in years,
0:07:11 > 0:07:15'marked by a return of attacks on the city centre.'
0:07:15 > 0:07:18Sinn Fein was starting a long march of its own.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22The party's leadership was beginning to develop an endgame.
0:07:22 > 0:07:24How do you end the Troubles?
0:07:24 > 0:07:29After decades of violence, they were nowhere closer to a united Ireland.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32'For the first time, Gerry Adams was challenged by John Hume,
0:07:32 > 0:07:35'in explicitly nationalist and republican terms,
0:07:35 > 0:07:37'to defend the IRA's campaign.'
0:07:37 > 0:07:41Over the next nine months, the two men and delegations from their parties
0:07:41 > 0:07:45had a series of secret meetings, at which they exchanged in writing
0:07:45 > 0:07:47their own arguments and answers to the others.
0:07:47 > 0:07:52'The talks ended in August, without agreement.'
0:07:52 > 0:07:55John Hume's talks with Sinn Fein marked a shift in the landscape.
0:07:55 > 0:07:58It was a sign that republicans in particular
0:07:58 > 0:08:01were looking for something different, not just the gun.
0:08:01 > 0:08:06Gerry Adams had said publicly that he was looking to create
0:08:06 > 0:08:09a non-armed political movement to work for self-determination.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12That meant Sinn Fein wanted a seat at the talks table,
0:08:12 > 0:08:16without frightening Unionists and without going too far for its own faithful.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21If there were signs of change on the wind in Northern Ireland,
0:08:21 > 0:08:24British opinion received a severe shock to the system.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28I've gone to prison for 15 years, for something I didn't do.
0:08:28 > 0:08:30For something I didn't know anything about.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34The release of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six showed
0:08:34 > 0:08:38that the British establishment had arguably indulged in sharp practice.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42These people simply weren't guilty of what they'd been convicted.
0:08:47 > 0:08:51'Paul Hill walked with his family into the arms of supporters,
0:08:51 > 0:08:53'a free man for the first time in 15 years.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57'The agony of so many years in jail for a crime he didn't commit,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00'swept away in the jubilation of the moment.'
0:09:00 > 0:09:03Many British people had to face the possibility that some
0:09:03 > 0:09:08within their own establishment had connived to perpetrate injustice.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11And the IRA helped no-one by remaining stone silent
0:09:11 > 0:09:13about who actually was guilty.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18Some of the prisoners' families told me that
0:09:18 > 0:09:21whenever there had been a possibility of release,
0:09:21 > 0:09:24the IRA made a point of carrying out an atrocity to prevent it.
0:09:24 > 0:09:29The republican movement loves a martyr, even when it's not one of its own.
0:09:29 > 0:09:33There were a lot more unpalatable possibilities out there which would
0:09:33 > 0:09:38not only have to be faced, but which were arriving at great speed.
0:09:38 > 0:09:40'Nelson Mandela's specially chartered jet
0:09:40 > 0:09:43'landed at Dublin Airport at lunchtime.
0:09:43 > 0:09:47'He called for the British Government and the IRA to sit down together for talks,
0:09:47 > 0:09:51'even though he acknowledged the IRA represented only a minority.'
0:09:52 > 0:09:56The issue is that differences have arisen.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00As a result of these differences many people have died,
0:10:00 > 0:10:02have lost their lives.
0:10:02 > 0:10:06What is the sense of continuing with that mutual slaughter?
0:10:06 > 0:10:10'Although Downing Street sources are playing down Mr Mandela's remarks,
0:10:10 > 0:10:12'Mrs Thatcher will leave him in no doubt -
0:10:12 > 0:10:15'the Government doesn't negotiate with terrorists.'
0:10:15 > 0:10:18'Peter Brooke, the Northern Ireland Secretary,
0:10:18 > 0:10:20'isn't commenting on Mr Mandela's remarks.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24'In an article in tonight's London Evening Standard, though,
0:10:24 > 0:10:28'he says dialogue is the only way forward, but stresses it would be
0:10:28 > 0:10:33'a tragedy if the Armalite should have primacy over the ballot box.'
0:10:33 > 0:10:38Given the times, you can just imagine the reaction to that,
0:10:38 > 0:10:39especially in Britain.
0:10:39 > 0:10:44It was, "Not on the agenda, Mr Mandela, no can do, Mr Mandela,
0:10:44 > 0:10:48"and frankly, not much of your business either, Mr Mandela."
0:10:48 > 0:10:52But part of the backwash to that was that my ITV colleague and I
0:10:52 > 0:10:54attracted a fair degree of criticism
0:10:54 > 0:10:58for trapping the man into saying something controversial.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00It was absolutely not true.
0:11:00 > 0:11:03He was asked two perfectly reasonable questions, to which
0:11:03 > 0:11:08he gave very firm answers, and clearly believed what he was saying.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11It didn't happen because he said it, but goodness me,
0:11:11 > 0:11:15what he had to say became one of the absolute cornerstones
0:11:15 > 0:11:17of what the process turned into.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24Ireland, inward looking though it might be, couldn't remain untouched
0:11:24 > 0:11:28by world events, and not just South Africa but the Middle East, too.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31The release of Irish hostage, Brian Keenan,
0:11:31 > 0:11:35had no direct relation to politics here, but it was something
0:11:35 > 0:11:39from elsewhere, of liberation, of change, brought directly home.
0:11:40 > 0:11:45'The homecoming at Dublin airport was emotional, but triumphant.
0:11:52 > 0:11:53'A few minutes later,
0:11:53 > 0:11:57'he spoke of his feelings for the hostages still in captivity.'
0:11:59 > 0:12:03I feel torn between a rock and a hard place.
0:12:05 > 0:12:08I'm overwhelmed.
0:12:09 > 0:12:13Most of my job was, necessarily, reporting Northern Ireland,
0:12:13 > 0:12:15but the Republic was hugely important, too.
0:12:15 > 0:12:19After all, I was Ireland correspondent.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21The Republic was changing fast,
0:12:21 > 0:12:24much faster than people in Britain or the North thought.
0:12:24 > 0:12:29Mary Robinson swept to one of the least likely political victories ever,
0:12:29 > 0:12:31and became Ireland's first woman president.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35She went on to transform the nature of the office.
0:12:35 > 0:12:37CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:12:37 > 0:12:40'This evening, the announcement of the result
0:12:40 > 0:12:43'set the seal on a truly extraordinary victory.'
0:12:43 > 0:12:46CHEERING
0:12:46 > 0:12:48'But her victory speech was very confident,
0:12:48 > 0:12:53'saluting the voters she feels closest to.'
0:12:53 > 0:12:55The women of Ireland - Mna na hEireann -
0:12:55 > 0:12:58who instead of rocking the cradle rocked the system.
0:12:58 > 0:13:02CHEERING
0:13:02 > 0:13:05Of course, all the journalists groaned and said, "That's cheesy."
0:13:05 > 0:13:08I rather arrogantly stood out in front of them and said,
0:13:08 > 0:13:11"Ha-ha, but you'll all use it." And of course, we did.
0:13:11 > 0:13:15I remember thinking the instant she'd said it, "What a moment,"
0:13:15 > 0:13:17and talk about change time.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21I was a student here in the early '70s, but now
0:13:21 > 0:13:26I was forcefully struck by just how much more confident the place was,
0:13:26 > 0:13:30and being Irish had become downright fashionable.
0:13:32 > 0:13:36But while the makings of change and what would become a peace process
0:13:36 > 0:13:39were evident all round, the core problem remained.
0:13:39 > 0:13:40One of the steps to change that
0:13:40 > 0:13:43came from Secretary of State Peter Brooke.
0:13:43 > 0:13:47He declared Britain had no selfish, economic or strategic interest
0:13:47 > 0:13:48in Northern Ireland.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51That was significant for the simple reason
0:13:51 > 0:13:54that someone had actually said it out loud.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58Publicly, the unionists hated the speech,
0:13:58 > 0:14:01but the smart ones knew a new game was beginning.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05Back up north, though, my phone only rang with bad news.
0:14:05 > 0:14:09'Six people died in an IRA bomb attack on this army checkpoint
0:14:09 > 0:14:11'on the outskirts of Londonderry.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13'Five of them were soldiers,
0:14:13 > 0:14:16'the other victim was Patsy Gillespie,
0:14:16 > 0:14:18'a civilian chef at an army base in the city.
0:14:18 > 0:14:22'He was forced at gunpoint to drive the bomb into the checkpoint.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26'The IRA used him as a human bomb because to the terrorists,
0:14:26 > 0:14:29'he was a collaborator.'
0:14:29 > 0:14:33Patsy Gillespie was just one man who drove to his own death
0:14:33 > 0:14:36to protect his wife and children.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38It seemed it couldn't get much worse than this.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42'Another 300 troops are being sent to Northern Ireland tomorrow,
0:14:42 > 0:14:44'to help cope with the worsening violence...
0:14:44 > 0:14:47'There were two sectarian attacks on Catholic men today,
0:14:47 > 0:14:50'apparently in retaliation for last night's IRA shootings.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53'This is just what churchmen and politicians feared,
0:14:53 > 0:14:57'retaliation for retaliation, and what's really worrying the police
0:14:57 > 0:15:00'is that there may be a lot more to come.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02'The bomb exploded in a recreation area and bar,
0:15:02 > 0:15:05'in a basement of the military wing of the hospital,
0:15:05 > 0:15:09and both the dead and most of the injured are soldiers or their families.'
0:15:09 > 0:15:14'The IRA say they weren't targeting anything specific with their £1,000 van bomb -
0:15:14 > 0:15:19'the biggest of five attempts to bomb the centre of Belfast in the past month.'
0:15:19 > 0:15:22A new political game might have started,
0:15:22 > 0:15:25but the old game still had to burn itself out.
0:15:30 > 0:15:34On the rural roads and along the hedgerows,
0:15:34 > 0:15:39people took their lives in their hands, simply by doing a day's work.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44The IRA murdered eight Protestant builders here,
0:15:44 > 0:15:46for the crime of working on an army base.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52'The workmen died when a 600-pound bomb exploded
0:15:52 > 0:15:55'close to their van, as they were driving home.
0:15:55 > 0:15:59'The security forces cordoned off the area for a two-mile radius
0:15:59 > 0:16:03'for several hours after the attack. The blast was heard 12 miles away.
0:16:03 > 0:16:07'The device was detonated either by a radio signal or a command wire,
0:16:07 > 0:16:11'which means the terrorists waited and watched for their victims.'
0:16:11 > 0:16:17'This is a carnage scene. It is evil, it is wanton,
0:16:17 > 0:16:22'and there are insufficient words to describe one's condemnation of it.'
0:16:22 > 0:16:26And it was here at Teebane that we used an image which has haunted me,
0:16:26 > 0:16:30which communicated the human aspect of yet another incident.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34That flask had been part of someone's lunch just a few hours earlier.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36As I read the names, it struck me that
0:16:36 > 0:16:38so many people are not remembered like this.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41Their only memorial is a headstone.
0:16:41 > 0:16:45So many of the deaths in the Northern Ireland Troubles were lonely ones.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55It was the multiple murders that got the big headlines.
0:16:55 > 0:16:59That's exactly why the paramilitaries carried them out.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05'The latest victims of Belfast's increasingly reckless gunmen
0:17:05 > 0:17:08'were in a bookmaker's shop on one of the city's main roads.
0:17:08 > 0:17:13'About 20 customers were inside at the time, just after 2:00pm -
0:17:13 > 0:17:16'the crowd, in for the start of the afternoon's racing.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19'Two gunman walked in, one with a handgun, one with a rifle,
0:17:19 > 0:17:22'and they opened fire, indiscriminately.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26'Five people died, another ten were injured in a hail of gunfire.'
0:17:26 > 0:17:31This was a purely sectarian attack, carried out by loyalist gunmen
0:17:31 > 0:17:35whose sole intention was to kill Catholics, any Catholics.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38'It's another benchmark in Belfast's escalating violence.'
0:17:40 > 0:17:41I grew up on the Ormeau Road,
0:17:41 > 0:17:45and I'll never forget how silent the road was that day.
0:17:45 > 0:17:50It was as silent as I've ever heard anything and one woman began to cry.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52She got louder and louder and louder,
0:17:52 > 0:17:54and eventually friends walked her way,
0:17:54 > 0:17:57and not one of the photographers or the cameramen
0:17:57 > 0:18:00took a photograph or recorded any sound.
0:18:01 > 0:18:02This was an awful time.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06No-one knew if stepping outside their front door would get them killed.
0:18:06 > 0:18:11As soon as one paramilitary group did something, another one reacted.
0:18:11 > 0:18:16Not long after this, a colleague and I went to see UDA leaders on the Shankill Road.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19They were ordinary working-class Belfast man,
0:18:19 > 0:18:23just the same as the men the UFF had murdered in the bookies.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27I put it to them that they were driving Catholics into the arms of the IRA,
0:18:27 > 0:18:34and the reply was, "As long as the IRA continued its genocide, loyalists would strike back."
0:18:34 > 0:18:38It was a case of, "We can kill as many of yours as you can kill of ours,"
0:18:38 > 0:18:40a cycle that had to be broken.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43The politics couldn't be forgotten.
0:18:43 > 0:18:47It was only from that direction that an end to this misery would come.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00And steps were being taken in that direction.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03One of them was the Ulster Unionists going to Dublin
0:19:03 > 0:19:07for talks with the Irish government. That had never been done before.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10There was a new imperative for dialogue.
0:19:15 > 0:19:18I'm quite often asked, "What was the turning point?"
0:19:18 > 0:19:20The truth is, there really wasn't one.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22The process, even at its lowest level,
0:19:22 > 0:19:25was the right people in the right place at the right time.
0:19:25 > 0:19:29If I had to point to one, it would be the IRA bombing in Warrington,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32in which two young children were killed.
0:19:32 > 0:19:35Why? Because of the impact on opinion in the republic.
0:19:35 > 0:19:39While most Irish people have relatives in America,
0:19:39 > 0:19:42everyone has relatives in England. It was a human response.
0:19:42 > 0:19:47In my view, no other IRA action brought this reaction
0:19:47 > 0:19:50from the great mass of Irish people.
0:19:50 > 0:19:54The IRA had a rule not to carry out operations south of the border,
0:19:54 > 0:19:58because it would damage their image. Warrington did just that.
0:19:59 > 0:20:03For two days, the people of Dublin have been putting their signatures
0:20:03 > 0:20:07to books of condolence to express their sympathies in seven separate books.
0:20:07 > 0:20:11Many simply wrote the word "Sorry" beside their signatures.
0:20:11 > 0:20:12Many others said,
0:20:12 > 0:20:14"Not in our name".
0:20:14 > 0:20:18Of course, Republicans took a depressingly cynical
0:20:18 > 0:20:19and selfish view of this.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22One senior Republican told me that round the world,
0:20:22 > 0:20:25the IRA had gone from being seen as freedom fighters
0:20:25 > 0:20:27to being seen as baby killers.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42Get back!
0:20:42 > 0:20:45The Shankill Road bombing was a terrible thing
0:20:45 > 0:20:48and the night it happened there was a news programme on BBC Two
0:20:48 > 0:20:50at about half-past seven.
0:20:50 > 0:20:52And the IRA had said it didn't mean to kill
0:20:52 > 0:20:54all those people in the fish shop.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57It was trying to kill the leadership
0:20:57 > 0:20:59of the loyalist UDA paramilitary group.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02The presenter asked me, what did I make of that?
0:21:02 > 0:21:04And I had to say, "I realise this is not going to be
0:21:04 > 0:21:07"a popular opinion tonight, but I believe them."
0:21:07 > 0:21:10I was terribly nervous afterwards that I'd gone too far
0:21:10 > 0:21:13but that was the kind of decision you had to take in those days.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16If you were going to tell the truth about something,
0:21:16 > 0:21:19you had to reflect the unpalatable.
0:21:21 > 0:21:22SHE WEEPS
0:21:22 > 0:21:23I hate them.
0:21:23 > 0:21:25What they've done.
0:21:25 > 0:21:27They've destroyed my child's life.
0:21:27 > 0:21:30I've no love for them.
0:21:30 > 0:21:33I know people say you should forgive and forget,
0:21:33 > 0:21:35I can't.
0:21:35 > 0:21:38I can't. Not what they've done.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41They destroyed people's lives yesterday.
0:21:41 > 0:21:43It was needless.
0:21:52 > 0:21:57The youngest victim was Leanne Murray, who was a teenager.
0:21:57 > 0:22:01And the next day everyone wanted, for the coverage, an interview with her mother
0:22:01 > 0:22:04which the family were saying she wouldn't do.
0:22:04 > 0:22:08So I went up to her house, we were allowed in and we did the interview
0:22:08 > 0:22:11and Mrs Murray sat there weeping throughout,
0:22:11 > 0:22:14talking about what a lovely wee girl she was and how she'd left
0:22:14 > 0:22:18the rest of the family to go to the fish shop to get her Saturday treat.
0:22:18 > 0:22:20And I remember sitting there thinking,
0:22:20 > 0:22:24this is a fantastic interview, this is just a wonderful interview.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27And the other part of my head, if you like, the human part, was going,
0:22:27 > 0:22:30what on earth am I doing in this woman's living room?
0:22:30 > 0:22:33And all I could say to her at the end was, "Mrs Murray,
0:22:33 > 0:22:36"I'm so sorry this has happened to you, genuinely.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38"And all I can say to you is this interview is going to have
0:22:38 > 0:22:41"a tremendous impact when it goes round the world",
0:22:41 > 0:22:44which it did. But at the same time, when we left the house,
0:22:44 > 0:22:47my hands were shaking and the cameraman just put his head
0:22:47 > 0:22:50on the steering wheel in the crew car and we had to sit there
0:22:50 > 0:22:53for about five minutes while we got our breath back.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05Just driving around like this, I don't think about it all the time
0:23:05 > 0:23:09and I don't obsess about it, but if I go for a drive like this,
0:23:09 > 0:23:12then I remember, oh, yeah, there was somebody shot dead there,
0:23:12 > 0:23:14there was an explosion over there.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18The Troubles went on for so long, they affected so many people
0:23:18 > 0:23:20and they were so diverse across the city,
0:23:20 > 0:23:25in some places, you could say every kerbstone has a story to tell.
0:23:25 > 0:23:28One of the things that's really struck me
0:23:28 > 0:23:31is how many people still want to come up and tell you their story
0:23:31 > 0:23:33about who they knew who was killed,
0:23:33 > 0:23:35about how they might have been there themselves,
0:23:35 > 0:23:38but for happenstance, they were somewhere else.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41And they still want that story to be told.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44And I think that's very important. If there's one important thing
0:23:44 > 0:23:47the media did in all those years and still can do,
0:23:47 > 0:23:52is just let people tell their stories, have their say.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56At the time though, not all those stories could be told.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00There were just too many stories to tell and they kept coming,
0:24:00 > 0:24:03day after day after day.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11I felt it was very important to keep communicating
0:24:11 > 0:24:13that human side of the violence,
0:24:13 > 0:24:15but at the same time, I had to keep an eye on
0:24:15 > 0:24:21what was happening with the politics because things were happening.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24The mourners at those funerals in the aftermath of the Shankill bomb
0:24:24 > 0:24:26didn't know, probably didn't care that day,
0:24:26 > 0:24:30what was happening politically out of sight.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36Gerry Adams carried the coffin of Thomas Begley -
0:24:36 > 0:24:40the IRA man killed by his own bomb on the Shankill Road.
0:24:40 > 0:24:42He had to, politically.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51Many of the bereaved said that if their relatives' death
0:24:51 > 0:24:54meant no-one else would die, they could take some comfort
0:24:54 > 0:24:56and maybe they did.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59Because perhaps for the first time, politicians found
0:24:59 > 0:25:02the murders a reason to keep trying, not a reason to stop.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09If the implication from the honourable gentleman's remarks
0:25:09 > 0:25:12are that we should sit down and talk with Mr Adams
0:25:12 > 0:25:14and the Provisional IRA,
0:25:14 > 0:25:17I can only say to the honourable gentleman,
0:25:17 > 0:25:18that would turn my stomach over
0:25:18 > 0:25:21and that of most people in this house and we will not do it.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25That language seemed unequivocal.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28Now a lot of us thought some sort of contacts might be going on
0:25:28 > 0:25:30and they were.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34But it was a secret which was blown by the Observer newspaper.
0:25:34 > 0:25:37The denials had been so emphatic that the discovery was a shock.
0:25:37 > 0:25:41Many journalists felt they'd been lied to.
0:25:41 > 0:25:44The night before the Observer published,
0:25:44 > 0:25:46I got a call from a trusted government source.
0:25:46 > 0:25:48He gave me all the details
0:25:48 > 0:25:52and I was able to break the story on the late Saturday news.
0:25:52 > 0:25:57I doubt the government would ever have revealed the contacts otherwise.
0:25:57 > 0:25:58Now here's an object lesson.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02Journalists are really good at remembering the things they got right,
0:26:02 > 0:26:05and really bad at remembering the things they got wrong.
0:26:05 > 0:26:09I said on the late news that night that I thought it was very difficult for Sir Patrick Mayhew
0:26:09 > 0:26:13to survive this one, because it looked as though the government had been caught out
0:26:13 > 0:26:15doing something it said it wasn't doing.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18But of course he came here on the Monday to make a statement
0:26:18 > 0:26:20to MPs and was hailed all round
0:26:20 > 0:26:23for taking a bold and courageous step.
0:26:23 > 0:26:26A lot of the decisions, talks and agreements carried out
0:26:26 > 0:26:30during the peace process, were and remain secret.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33The unthinkable could be done in private
0:26:33 > 0:26:35as long as it led to results in public.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38I'd been to Downing Street many times
0:26:38 > 0:26:40but what happened next sticks in my memory.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43It's not much remembered now, but to me,
0:26:43 > 0:26:46the Downing Street Declaration was crucial.
0:26:47 > 0:26:50The Taoiseach and I have now agreed
0:26:50 > 0:26:54on a joint declaration on Northern Ireland.
0:26:54 > 0:26:57It is a declaration for democracy and dialogue
0:26:57 > 0:27:00and it is based on consent.
0:27:00 > 0:27:04It makes no compromise on strongly held principles.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07But it does embody our common view
0:27:07 > 0:27:09that there is an opportunity to end violence for good
0:27:09 > 0:27:11in Northern Ireland.
0:27:11 > 0:27:15This is a historic opportunity for peace.
0:27:15 > 0:27:19We hope that everybody will grasp it,
0:27:19 > 0:27:23So that we can all make a new beginning.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27This came against a background of the final years of apartheid
0:27:27 > 0:27:31and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
0:27:31 > 0:27:34So there was a temptation to see what was happening here
0:27:34 > 0:27:38as something going at the same pace and something on the same scale.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41So I had to take a fairly cold view of it, which was,
0:27:41 > 0:27:45Albert Reynolds had described it as a historic opportunity
0:27:45 > 0:27:48and I said it will only prove to be a historic occasion
0:27:48 > 0:27:51if it pulls off what it's intended to do
0:27:51 > 0:27:53which was to secure an IRA ceasefire,
0:27:53 > 0:27:57then a loyalist paramilitary ceasefire, which would in turn lead
0:27:57 > 0:28:01to all-party talks and then you'd have all-round agreement
0:28:01 > 0:28:03which I said at the time would be a very impressive
0:28:03 > 0:28:05series of tricks to pull off.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08A door to a solution which had seemed irredeemably locked
0:28:08 > 0:28:10and bolted had just opened.
0:28:12 > 0:28:16At this point, I'd been Ireland correspondent for five years
0:28:16 > 0:28:19and I now had a changing story to tell.
0:28:19 > 0:28:22It was something that would change all our lives.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25The primacy of the gun was becoming the primacy of politics.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29But none of us - politicians, press, public -
0:28:29 > 0:28:32knew how much longer it was going to take.
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0:28:45 > 0:28:48E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk