0:00:06 > 0:00:08Seconds after the explosion,
0:00:08 > 0:00:12the horror of an attack on people, on a community,
0:00:12 > 0:00:13in all its raw brutality.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16INDISTINCT SHOUTING
0:00:18 > 0:00:21Behind the shields of the RUC's riot teams
0:00:21 > 0:00:25the little girls of Holy Cross Primary go to school.
0:00:26 > 0:00:30I nominate Martin McGuinness as Minister for Education.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33There it was - the reality of the Good Friday agreement.
0:00:33 > 0:00:35Sinn Fein in government.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38Let me make it clear. We will not be sitting in that government
0:00:38 > 0:00:40with IRA terrorists.
0:00:43 > 0:00:45The marching season in Northern Ireland
0:00:45 > 0:00:48is now where the old enmities find their expression.
0:00:55 > 0:00:59Just after the Good Friday agreement, somebody asked me
0:00:59 > 0:01:01what had I learnt from it all,
0:01:01 > 0:01:06and what I said was that people can change, when they have to.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10And, time and again across 20 years, I reported upon the unthinkable
0:01:10 > 0:01:16becoming the possible, and then the probable and finally, actual.
0:01:16 > 0:01:19When I became Ireland Correspondent in 1988,
0:01:19 > 0:01:22everything I reported on was extraordinary
0:01:22 > 0:01:25but it dawned on me that what most people wanted was quite simple,
0:01:25 > 0:01:28that was the right to be ordinary.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32What I mean is, people just wanted to live normal lives,
0:01:32 > 0:01:35not surrounded by a kind of daily war.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38It was going to take almost a decade to get there.
0:01:38 > 0:01:42But there was a general assumption, outside Northern Ireland,
0:01:42 > 0:01:44that normalising would happen very quickly.
0:01:44 > 0:01:46So one of my problems
0:01:46 > 0:01:49was to keep the non-Northern Ireland audience interested.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53Why was it taking so long to get the Good Friday Agreement to work?
0:01:53 > 0:01:55For many reasons.
0:01:55 > 0:01:59Weapons decommissioning in particular would take years to resolve.
0:01:59 > 0:02:03NEWS REPORT: The biggest divisions in this campaign were in Unionism
0:02:03 > 0:02:07and with the result so far, the camp against the Good Friday Agreement,
0:02:07 > 0:02:10led by Ian Paisley, is ahead on points.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13This contest hasn't even reached half-time yet.
0:02:13 > 0:02:14Dublin is sick!
0:02:14 > 0:02:15Hear, hear!
0:02:15 > 0:02:19Mr Tony Blair is sick. His lies has caught up him
0:02:19 > 0:02:22and the sickest man of all is David Trimble.
0:02:22 > 0:02:27The attempt by the DUP and their allies to wreck the Assembly
0:02:27 > 0:02:29has failed, and will continue to fail.
0:02:32 > 0:02:36On the way to office, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble heads for
0:02:36 > 0:02:40the first meeting of the new, devolved Northern Ireland assembly.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43He's the first local politician as First Minister,
0:02:43 > 0:02:45or effectively Prime Minister of Northern Ireland
0:02:45 > 0:02:48to hold such an office, since 1974.
0:02:48 > 0:02:52We have arrived, and you have been compelled
0:02:52 > 0:02:54by the votes of the people, to come here.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58Even in opposition, you will be part of the change
0:02:58 > 0:03:01which will take place on this island.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05The newly-elected assembly met, but without powers.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09A sort of halfway house, but very significant all the same.
0:03:09 > 0:03:11A beginning.
0:03:11 > 0:03:15Politicians who'd never talked directly before, doing just that.
0:03:16 > 0:03:20Good afternoon. My name's Denis Murray.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23I was the BBC's Ireland correspondent for 20 years.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26And I've 35 years in journalism, all told.
0:03:26 > 0:03:30I was in an odd position, in a way,
0:03:30 > 0:03:32that, as Ireland Correspondent for the BBC,
0:03:32 > 0:03:36I was reporting Northern Ireland and Ireland as a whole
0:03:36 > 0:03:38to an audience outside of Ireland,
0:03:38 > 0:03:44but most of the journalists in Northern Ireland were reporting the country to itself.
0:03:44 > 0:03:46Up to the hunger strike,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49most of the reporting for London had been done by "firemen" -
0:03:49 > 0:03:51people from London sent in for a week or two.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55So, eventually, they invented this title of "Ireland Correspondent" -
0:03:55 > 0:04:00somebody who would have to live with the consequences of his reporting.
0:04:00 > 0:04:04The Omagh bombing was one of the stories we had to cover.
0:04:04 > 0:04:09And I'll be straight with you - I found that really trying
0:04:09 > 0:04:11because we thought it was all over
0:04:11 > 0:04:14and then, suddenly, the worst thing imaginable had happened.
0:04:17 > 0:04:22There should've been a carnival here. Instead, there was carnage.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27Saturday afternoon shoppers, here because it was safe.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30Crowded together, away from a bomb scare.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34Instead, the bomb was in their midst.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38It killed 14 women and three young girls.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41It killed five men and four young boys.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44It killed three generations of one family.
0:04:44 > 0:04:46A 65-year-old grandmother,
0:04:46 > 0:04:50her pregnant 30 year-old daughter, and her 18 month-old daughter.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53A litany of the dead, of the slaughtered innocents.
0:04:55 > 0:04:5929 people and unborn twins murdered.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02And to what end? None.
0:05:04 > 0:05:07There was something I found very striking after the bombing,
0:05:07 > 0:05:12because no matter who came here, Tony Bair, Bill Clinton,
0:05:12 > 0:05:15Mo Mowlam, the Queen, they all did the same thing.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18Which was, they stopped and looked around
0:05:18 > 0:05:21because they realised for the first time
0:05:21 > 0:05:23just how narrow this part of the street is.
0:05:23 > 0:05:26And I could see they were all doing the same thing -
0:05:26 > 0:05:29visualising what it must have been like when the bomb went off.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35# You can have my heart
0:05:37 > 0:05:41# But it isn't new
0:05:43 > 0:05:46# It's been used and broken
0:05:46 > 0:05:52# and only comes in blue... #
0:05:52 > 0:05:55As a reporter, one of the most remarkable things
0:05:55 > 0:05:57about the aftermath of the bombing
0:05:57 > 0:06:02was the genuinely open-hearted welcome from the people of Omagh.
0:06:02 > 0:06:04I worried that the media would be seen
0:06:04 > 0:06:07as not just intrusive, but invasive.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11But there was no hostility, which would've been understandable.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15Instead, people stopped you on the street to tell you their story.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Not to have it broadcast or reported.
0:06:18 > 0:06:23Just to have somebody, a familiar face from the TV, to listen.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31A week after the bombing, there was a memorial service
0:06:31 > 0:06:34and one of the prayers at that was,
0:06:34 > 0:06:37"We thank those who've told our story to the world."
0:06:37 > 0:06:40and I can't tell you how much those words still mean to me.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50But the political process had become unstoppable.
0:06:50 > 0:06:55No violence was going to prevent the politicians trying to move ahead.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57That was not going to be easy.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01But one thing they all agreed on was the first order of business
0:07:01 > 0:07:04on the first working day of the Assembly at Stormont.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08All the members signed the book of condolence for the Omagh bombing.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17The rest of the sitting that day struck me as "business as usual".
0:07:17 > 0:07:21In a way, its significance was that it was ordinary.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28One essential part of the agreement was anything but everyday.
0:07:28 > 0:07:31The early release of paramilitary prisoners
0:07:31 > 0:07:35was - and remains - the most painful part of the whole process.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38Politically, it wasn't controversial.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41If the agreement was to work, it had to be done.
0:07:41 > 0:07:43The human level was totally different.
0:07:43 > 0:07:48Relatives of the dead, in many cases, had to watch killers go free.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52Many families were put through the agony of loss all over again.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09Just looking at those shelves brings back so much.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12They say journalism is the first draft of history.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14Well, you're looking at it.
0:08:14 > 0:08:16Those are compilation tapes
0:08:16 > 0:08:20and that means there's about ten reports on each tape,
0:08:20 > 0:08:22so there are thousands of reports up there.
0:08:22 > 0:08:26You look at that and you wonder how many people's lives
0:08:26 > 0:08:29were recorded up there, how many people's deaths,
0:08:29 > 0:08:31how many people's lives were changed forever.
0:08:35 > 0:08:36An old country graveyard.
0:08:36 > 0:08:39Hardly used now, but a grim discovery.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42A new coffin, partly concealed.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45The body found here is believed to be that of Eamon Molloy,
0:08:45 > 0:08:49who disappeared from his North Belfast home in the mid-1970s.
0:08:50 > 0:08:55The Disappeared. 17 people kidnapped and murdered by republicans.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58On the one o'clock news at the cemetery
0:08:58 > 0:09:00I said that this was typical IRA.
0:09:00 > 0:09:04Effectively a token gesture, which was at best grudging
0:09:04 > 0:09:07and, apart from the importance to the family,
0:09:07 > 0:09:09had no real significance.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11I was immediately phoned by a rather hurt Gerry Adams
0:09:11 > 0:09:15who said I had under-estimated the significance of this
0:09:15 > 0:09:18and that it was a major gesture by the IRA.
0:09:18 > 0:09:20I didn't change my opinion
0:09:20 > 0:09:23but in later reports, I included his view.
0:09:23 > 0:09:25The most public search for remains
0:09:25 > 0:09:28took place on this beach in County Louth.
0:09:28 > 0:09:32The hunt for Jean McConville, abducted in 1972.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35Her remains were eventually found.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37The most melancholy sight,
0:09:37 > 0:09:40just two undertakers needed to carry her coffin.
0:09:40 > 0:09:42Most of the Disappeared were young men.
0:09:42 > 0:09:47Some of the mothers put their son's names on family headstones,
0:09:47 > 0:09:49just so they'd have a place to grieve.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52All the families wanted was a Christian burial
0:09:52 > 0:09:54and somewhere to mourn.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59While I was Ireland correspondent, there was an assumption
0:09:59 > 0:10:03that the peace process was finite, that it would end in something
0:10:03 > 0:10:05but in many ways, it's still going on,
0:10:05 > 0:10:08because you can't build a new future without unravelling the past
0:10:08 > 0:10:10and that still haunts us all.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14And I doubt if the full truth of the Troubles will ever be told.
0:10:17 > 0:10:20The murders of the Disappeared
0:10:20 > 0:10:23were denied by the paramilitaries for decades.
0:10:23 > 0:10:26Eventually, the IRA admitted some of them.
0:10:26 > 0:10:30So, while they'd answered those questions about the past,
0:10:30 > 0:10:33they were still bluntly refusing to provide a resolution
0:10:33 > 0:10:37to the issue of the present - getting rid of their guns.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40Two years they've had, to demonstrate a commitment
0:10:40 > 0:10:42to peace and democracy.
0:10:42 > 0:10:44The key question is,
0:10:44 > 0:10:48is there any genuine intent, amongst the paramilitaries,
0:10:48 > 0:10:51to change, to commit themselves to peace?
0:10:53 > 0:10:56With little progress on decommissioning in sight,
0:10:56 > 0:11:00implementing the totality of the Good Friday deal was impossible.
0:11:00 > 0:11:04The parties simply couldn't move their positions.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08So the Governments decided that, once again, help was needed.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11Former US senator George Mitchell, who chaired the talks
0:11:11 > 0:11:15leading to the Agreement, was called on to return and lead a review.
0:11:15 > 0:11:19I believe those difficulties can be overcome.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23If I thought otherwise, I would not be here.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27The people of Northern Ireland have been clear, consistent
0:11:27 > 0:11:33and overwhelming in their desire for peace and political stability.
0:11:34 > 0:11:38At this stage, the parties were barely speaking to each other.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41George Mitchell managed to break the ice.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44The plan had been for the parties to "jump together".
0:11:44 > 0:11:46The IRA would start decommissioning
0:11:46 > 0:11:49and the Unionists would go into Government with Sinn Fein.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52David Trimble persuaded his party to take a risk
0:11:52 > 0:11:57and share power with republicans before decommissioning started.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00We've done our bit.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05And, Mr Adams, it's over to you.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10We've jumped. You follow.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18Despite all the problems, there was a very strong feeling
0:12:18 > 0:12:23outside Northern Ireland that, once the agreement was made, that was it.
0:12:23 > 0:12:26Put at its most superficial, that there was some kind of happy ending
0:12:26 > 0:12:29in Ulster, that we'd all wished for.
0:12:29 > 0:12:32The level of world media attention dropped like a stone
0:12:32 > 0:12:35and the hundreds of crews and reporters
0:12:35 > 0:12:39who'd been here on Good Friday went away and, by and large, they didn't come back.
0:12:41 > 0:12:44The seemingly endless stops and starts of the process
0:12:44 > 0:12:48ceased being international news, even though one of the starts
0:12:48 > 0:12:51was the working reality of that agreement.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55I nominate Martin McGuinness as Minister for Education.
0:12:55 > 0:12:56DISGRUNTLED MURMURING
0:12:56 > 0:12:59I couldn't help feeling that the Unionist outrage
0:12:59 > 0:13:02over the very notion of Martin McGuiness in charge of schools
0:13:02 > 0:13:04was the unionists' own fault.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07They could have nominated one of their own first.
0:13:07 > 0:13:09I affirm the pledge of office...
0:13:09 > 0:13:13Even though it was a momentous day, I got a sense of fragility about it.
0:13:13 > 0:13:17I can't really explain why. It just didn't feel permanent.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21That Executive and Assembly, though, did a tremendous amount
0:13:21 > 0:13:24of real, nuts-and-bolts political work.
0:13:24 > 0:13:26But you felt it was only one crisis away from collapse.
0:13:28 > 0:13:33Throughout this period, the politics went through cycles of deadlock
0:13:33 > 0:13:35and then sudden bursts of progress.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38We always used to say it was like a blockage in a pipe
0:13:38 > 0:13:41suddenly being removed, and the water gushed through.
0:13:41 > 0:13:43I've lost count of the number of times
0:13:43 > 0:13:45I've stood at places like this
0:13:45 > 0:13:48and said the once-unthinkable has just happened
0:13:48 > 0:13:51And yet a couple of days later, they were taken for granted.
0:13:51 > 0:13:54They'd become part of the fabric very quickly.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57And all the parties, all the parties, threw away
0:13:57 > 0:13:59what had once been tablets of stone.
0:13:59 > 0:14:04ANGRY SHOUTING
0:14:08 > 0:14:12But you can't change all of history, all at once.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15SHOUTING
0:14:15 > 0:14:20Ardoyne, North Belfast, and the Holy Cross Catholic Girls Primary School.
0:14:22 > 0:14:25Protestants there felt an oppressed minority.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28Their protest was to block the parents and children
0:14:28 > 0:14:31going to the school, which was in the Loyalist area.
0:14:33 > 0:14:35Holy Cross was expected.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38It would have been well flagged up, I suppose.
0:14:38 > 0:14:41People knew something was going to happen.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45I remember that night, part of my live report
0:14:45 > 0:14:49into the late news programme.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52I said "if I can just add, having done all the analysis,
0:14:52 > 0:14:54and the facts, and so on,
0:14:54 > 0:14:57that it was one of the most poisonous, unpleasant events
0:14:57 > 0:15:00it had been my misfortune to have to report.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03They were apprehensive, but they hoped the worst was over.
0:15:03 > 0:15:07Surely, today, the protest would be peaceful.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10There seemed fewer Protestant protesters than before.
0:15:10 > 0:15:13But, from one Loyalist side-street, the stones began to fly.
0:15:19 > 0:15:24Seconds later, the blast bomb was thrown from the Loyalist crowd.
0:15:24 > 0:15:25EXPLOSION
0:15:25 > 0:15:29- SECOND EXPLOSION - Oh, Jesus Christ!
0:15:29 > 0:15:32People who, anywhere else, would be neighbours not knowing each other,
0:15:32 > 0:15:35here, the bile...the, just...
0:15:37 > 0:15:40Only word I can think of is poison. Awful.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43And also because these children were so small,
0:15:43 > 0:15:46and they terrified out of their wits.
0:15:46 > 0:15:48I remember one little girl just crying, "I want to go home".
0:15:48 > 0:15:52And I think that struck a chord with a lot of people round the world
0:15:52 > 0:15:55because that's something all kids say
0:15:55 > 0:15:58when they're at their wits' end, and they're miserable.
0:16:00 > 0:16:02After you had something like Holy Cross
0:16:02 > 0:16:05certain sections of both sides said, "We have to stay the way we were",
0:16:05 > 0:16:10for a brief while, because, "Look what them ones did to us."
0:16:17 > 0:16:19And both communities were feeling hurt,
0:16:19 > 0:16:22and one of the things that dogged all of us for years
0:16:22 > 0:16:26was that each community felt itself to be the victim community.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29Both sides had wrongs done to them
0:16:29 > 0:16:32and what we used to call "whataboutery".
0:16:32 > 0:16:33Bad things happened everywhere.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36And one of the triumphs of the process was that, by and large,
0:16:36 > 0:16:39you don't hear that as much now, as you once did.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42People have accepted that bad things happened everywhere
0:16:42 > 0:16:46and the real, important thing is that goal over there,
0:16:46 > 0:16:49of sorting the whole thing out.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52The great obstacle to that was the weapons issue.
0:16:52 > 0:16:56At an early stage, I took the view that if the guns weren't being used,
0:16:56 > 0:17:00then they were effectively out of commission, anyway.
0:17:00 > 0:17:01But I changed my mind.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04The principle behind putting the weapons beyond use
0:17:04 > 0:17:06completely trumped Sinn Fein's case,
0:17:06 > 0:17:10which was "the IRA won't do it, so don't ask".
0:17:10 > 0:17:14By the late '90s, Sinn Fein had lost the argument.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17The first act of decommissioning was very significant.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21And because it was the first, it didn't matter what the quantity was,
0:17:21 > 0:17:23as much as the fact that it happened.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27One government official said to me at the time
0:17:27 > 0:17:29it would've been significant
0:17:29 > 0:17:32if it had been a rusty pike from the 1798 Rising.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36The process of decommissioning was never revealed to us.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38But it was impossible to televise.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41It was a concept, and nobody ever saw it.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44And we just had to wait and hear from the people that were there,
0:17:44 > 0:17:46that it had happened.
0:17:47 > 0:17:52Nothing would work without trust. At Stormont, it was yet to build.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56This was over a purely political matter in the assembly.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58But it showed the parties still weren't used to
0:17:58 > 0:18:01being in the one place, together.
0:18:01 > 0:18:03We will not allow ourselves to be distracted
0:18:03 > 0:18:08by the sort of mob violence that certain parties descend to.
0:18:08 > 0:18:10Move it in that direction.
0:18:10 > 0:18:14The tensions underlying the "brawl in the hall"
0:18:14 > 0:18:18reflected those in the wider society.
0:18:18 > 0:18:21ANGRY SHOUTING
0:18:21 > 0:18:23The divisions were as wide as ever,
0:18:23 > 0:18:27with sectarian murders and an increase in punishment beatings.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30The absence of political progress didn't help.
0:18:34 > 0:18:36Just as throughout the Troubles,
0:18:36 > 0:18:39people coped, and got on with their lives.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42While things were becoming more normal,
0:18:42 > 0:18:44events that couldn't have been predicted
0:18:44 > 0:18:46were threatening the future of the process.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52Three Irish republicans were arrested in Colombia.
0:18:52 > 0:18:57They were charged and convicted of aiding Marxist guerrillas there.
0:18:57 > 0:18:59No-one believed they were eco-tourists.
0:19:02 > 0:19:04Then, Stormont-gate.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08Sinn Fein's offices at Parliament buildings raided by police.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12There were accusations of a spy ring involving Sinn Fein officials.
0:19:12 > 0:19:14This is the offices of a political party
0:19:14 > 0:19:20which sits in this assembly. This is an assembly building!
0:19:20 > 0:19:22All the charges were eventually dropped
0:19:22 > 0:19:26but this was the crisis that proved too much.
0:19:26 > 0:19:27The assembly collapsed.
0:19:30 > 0:19:32The public was simply bewildered.
0:19:32 > 0:19:34What on earth was going on?
0:19:34 > 0:19:35Unionists were outraged.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38They held crisis talks with Tony Blair
0:19:38 > 0:19:41but any trust they'd had in Sinn Fein was destroyed.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47Sinn Fein went to Downing Street, too.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50They saw the raid as a politically-motivated stunt,
0:19:50 > 0:19:53aimed purely at damaging them.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57In a speech in Belfast, Tony Blair laid it on the line.
0:19:57 > 0:20:02The fork in the road has finally come.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05Whatever guarantees we need to give
0:20:05 > 0:20:07that we will implement the agreement, we will.
0:20:07 > 0:20:12Whatever commitment to the end we all want to see,
0:20:12 > 0:20:17that of a normalised Northern Ireland, I will make.
0:20:17 > 0:20:24But we cannot carry on with the IRA half-in, half-out of this process.
0:20:24 > 0:20:29The assembly wouldn't sit again for another five years.
0:20:29 > 0:20:33In that political hiatus, Sinn Fein's electoral support went up.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37But at least some elements of the IRA believed
0:20:37 > 0:20:42they weren't just half-out of the process, and they reverted to type.
0:20:42 > 0:20:46An armed gang raided the Northern Bank and got away with £26 million
0:20:46 > 0:20:51after terrorising two bank officials' families.
0:20:51 > 0:20:57The IRA flatly denied any involvement. Nobody believed them.
0:20:57 > 0:21:03What was going on was this immediate post-conflict society
0:21:03 > 0:21:07trying to achieve some kind of normalcy.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11And those incidents were important for this reason, in my opinion.
0:21:11 > 0:21:15It showed the paramilitary grassroots that a ceasefire meant
0:21:15 > 0:21:19not stopping some actions, or operations as they called them,
0:21:19 > 0:21:21but stopping all of them.
0:21:21 > 0:21:24There was a phrase shot through the Troubles as well,
0:21:24 > 0:21:31which was, "The dogs in the street "knew how the paramilitaries were operating in their own society."
0:21:31 > 0:21:34Journalists knew a lot of that, but thinking you know something
0:21:34 > 0:21:36isn't the same as being able to prove it,
0:21:36 > 0:21:38so we couldn't report a lot of that stuff.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42Now the murder of Robert McCartney changed all that.
0:21:42 > 0:21:46Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners...
0:21:46 > 0:21:50The rosary, a traditional Catholic ritual for the dead.
0:21:50 > 0:21:54This is a Republican community saying to the Republican movement, "It's time to come clean."
0:21:54 > 0:21:59Robert McCartney was beaten and knifed to death after a row in a pub.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02His family is convinced members of the IRA did it,
0:22:02 > 0:22:05and they're now intimidating local people.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07It was a bar full of people.
0:22:07 > 0:22:11It wasn't one man did it. It was a gang of men.
0:22:11 > 0:22:13Why are they not charged?
0:22:13 > 0:22:17Simply because people are obviously afraid to come forward.
0:22:21 > 0:22:27The McCartney family's campaign for justice showed in sharp relief
0:22:27 > 0:22:32how Republicans worked at street level - cover up, lie and intimidate.
0:22:32 > 0:22:38The self-image of the IRA as noble freedom fighters was shattered.
0:22:38 > 0:22:41Robert McCartney's sisters didn't set out to do it,
0:22:41 > 0:22:45but they achieved something nobody else had, no politician, no group.
0:22:45 > 0:22:50As never before, Sinn Fein was on the back foot.
0:22:50 > 0:22:55In the past, I have defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle.
0:22:55 > 0:22:59I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee,
0:22:59 > 0:23:02or turn a blind eye to oppression,
0:23:02 > 0:23:05or for those who wanted a national republic.
0:23:05 > 0:23:07Now there is an alternative.
0:23:07 > 0:23:12The bank robbery and the murder of Robert McCartney had a dramatic effect.
0:23:12 > 0:23:18They became the catalyst for Gerry Adams' appeal to the IRA to disband, which it did.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21That really was seismic.
0:23:23 > 0:23:27What's really striking when you come to the Republican plot at Milltown
0:23:27 > 0:23:30is how far back the Republican memory goes.
0:23:30 > 0:23:36A hundred yards away over there is a memorial from 1798.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39But then Gerry Adams made his appeal to the IRA,
0:23:39 > 0:23:43which he wouldn't have made if he didn't think the IRA were going to do it.
0:23:43 > 0:23:48And the IRA drew a line under their most recent campaign.
0:23:48 > 0:23:52So after 30, almost 40 years, that was the end of it all.
0:23:52 > 0:23:57Two months later, the IRA completed the decommissioning of its weapons.
0:23:57 > 0:24:02Even so, our jobs as journalists didn't get any safer.
0:24:03 > 0:24:07As the Protestant Orange Order, their bands and supporters
0:24:07 > 0:24:10came past the Catholic Ardoyne area,
0:24:10 > 0:24:13they came under attack from golf balls and bottles.
0:24:13 > 0:24:18As soon as the first missiles flew, police pushed the Catholics away,
0:24:18 > 0:24:21a manoeuvre the locals felt to be out of proportion.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29The police pulled a manoeuvre that we hadn't seen before.
0:24:29 > 0:24:34Normally they would just sweep past the camera crew, but not this night.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37'We got stuck in a place we normally wouldn't have been,
0:24:37 > 0:24:39'and the water cannon turned in our direction.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41'Whoosh, it was all over you.
0:24:41 > 0:24:44'It wasn't so much the force of it, it was the volume of it.
0:24:44 > 0:24:48'It was like drowning in the air, I couldn't breathe.'
0:24:48 > 0:24:52And the cameraman's nose started to bleed and wouldn't stop.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55But he also had a blinding headache within five minutes.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58We couldn't drive back from here.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01But in another supposedly safe part, other members of the team,
0:25:01 > 0:25:05one of them got hit by shrapnel from a blast bomb,
0:25:05 > 0:25:09and one of the correspondents got hit in the shin by a brick that had a piece of nail in it.
0:25:09 > 0:25:12His whole shin began to swell up.
0:25:12 > 0:25:13In all my years of reporting
0:25:13 > 0:25:16I don't remember so many people getting hit in one night,
0:25:16 > 0:25:20or so many people from the one team getting hit in one night.
0:25:24 > 0:25:27Leadership is lonely, defeat worse yet.
0:25:27 > 0:25:30David Trimble listens to his DUP opponents' victory speech.
0:25:30 > 0:25:33The Ulster Unionist Party, under his leadership,
0:25:33 > 0:25:37lost the trust and support of the Unionist electorate.
0:25:37 > 0:25:43The political scene had changed. The makers and breakers of a deal were now the DUP and Sinn Fein.
0:25:43 > 0:25:48The old political extremes had become the new middle ground.
0:25:52 > 0:25:55Throughout this period, the politics stayed deadlocked
0:25:55 > 0:26:00and we seemed to spend hours at endless country houses in England
0:26:00 > 0:26:04while the two Prime Ministers tried to hot-house the thing.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08But I remember vividly, it struck me in September 2005
0:26:08 > 0:26:11that Ian Paisley in particular, but the DUP in general,
0:26:11 > 0:26:13really wanted to get back into government.
0:26:13 > 0:26:15They wanted to share power with Sinn Fein,
0:26:15 > 0:26:18and they wanted another election as well before it happened.
0:26:18 > 0:26:21I said this to my two closest colleagues.
0:26:21 > 0:26:22They said, "That'll never happen,
0:26:22 > 0:26:27"that would mean Ian Paisley throwing away 40 years of his career."
0:26:27 > 0:26:30And I said, "I bet it does happen." And do you know what? I was right.
0:26:34 > 0:26:39The deal was done, and this time it really did feel permanent.
0:26:39 > 0:26:42Now the debate would not be under the shadow of the past.
0:26:42 > 0:26:47It would be about education, health and the budget. Ordinary politics.
0:26:49 > 0:26:53In my 20 years as Ireland correspondent,
0:26:53 > 0:26:56I watched Northern Ireland move from the agony of the Troubles,
0:26:56 > 0:26:59through the ups and downs of the peace process,
0:26:59 > 0:27:02and finally, to this new dispensation.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05It was my privilege to be an eyewitness.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09And it's few journalists who get to see their story come to a conclusion.
0:27:09 > 0:27:15- IAN PAISLEY:- If you had told me some time ago that I would be standing here to take this office,
0:27:15 > 0:27:19I would have been totally unbelieving.
0:27:19 > 0:27:21MARTIN MCGUINNESS: 'We know this will not be easy,
0:27:21 > 0:27:26'and that the road we are embarking on will have many twists and turns.'
0:27:26 > 0:27:29It is, however, a road which we have chosen,
0:27:29 > 0:27:33and which is supported by the vast majority of our people.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36APPLAUSE
0:27:46 > 0:27:49Even now, everyone in Ireland up to a point
0:27:49 > 0:27:52is some kind of prisoner of history.
0:27:52 > 0:27:56But the greatest achievement has been that those bonds have been broken.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00If you look at the political history up to about 1988,
0:28:00 > 0:28:03and if you look at it now, it's utterly transformed.
0:28:03 > 0:28:07Set that against the previous 700 years of conflict,
0:28:07 > 0:28:10and I think that's just truly remarkable.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13Denis Murray, BBC News, Belfast.
0:28:30 > 0:28:33Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:28:33 > 0:28:36E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk