Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland

A time of relative peace in Northern Ireland escalates to full-blown conflict. As a civil rights movement gains pace, demanding equal rights for Catholics, the Provisional IRA comes to the fore, causing the British Army to be deployed.

With the situation compounded by tactical mistakes, soldiers quickly find themselves caught up in violent clashes - leading to 13 unarmed Catholics being shot dead by British paratroopers in Derry on what becomes known as Bloody Sunday.

It's 1972, and community divisions have deepened and intensified. Many working-class Catholic and Protestant communities are in the grip of paramilitary organisations. Thie episode charts a deteriorating situation in which killings, explosions, intimidation and street disorder become widespread – with devastating and often lasting effects.

The devastating impact of the conflict is explored through the stories of three women as IRA prisoners begin their hunger strike in protest against Margaret Thatcher's policies. Tit-for-tat killings, car bombs and assassinations are now commonplace in Northern Ireland. Fatigue, from a population desperate for a respite from the cycle of violence, is creeping in.

By the late 1980s, the news in Northern Ireland is a daily list of the dead. But 14 bloody days in March 1988 mark a new level of harrowing savagery.

When a car reverses at speed into an IRA funeral cortege, mourners are convinced it's another attack – a repeat of a grenade and gun strike by a lone loyalist that had killed three at an IRA funeral just days earlier. The car contains two British soldiers who are lynched and shot dead by a baying mob. The incident is captured on camera and becomes headline news.

There have been many false dawns in the conflict, but finally, the desire for change propels the possibility of peace for the next generation. At times, it seems that violence might escalate further as tensions run high, but following years of talks at government level, paramilitary ceasefires are announced on both sides.

When the Good Friday Agreement is finalised in April 1998, there is optimism about new beginnings. But the conflict has exacted a heavy cost. Its effects on victims and survivors are lasting and significant.