Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles

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For a non specialist like me, it provides a solid orientation in the history of the troubles – after all, there is nothing like the way people die to tell you about the conditions in which they lived – and at the same time makes it all immediate in a way that those of us who grew up elsewhere could not otherwise experience. The film features voiceovers from the actors Kenneth Branagh, Roma Downey, Adrian Dunbar, Brendan Gleeson, Ciarán Hinds, Sean McGinley, Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt, Stephen Rea, and Bronagh Waugh.

I should add that I think the primary value of Lost Lives is precisely *as* a reference volume, and in that sense I believe the non-partisan approach is completely appropriate. However, there is also a lacuna as big as a Laguna in that it was last published in revised format in 2008.But I am already very grateful to the authors for providing a resource that allows me to begin to form an understanding of a tremendously complex and bloody situation that not only raged for a long time on the very doorstep of my own homeland – and in which my country was explicitly involved – but which swallowed up friends and relatives of my own friends and relatives. The effect is overwhelming, which is why it took me so long to finish--I could generally only read 2-3 pages at a sitting. Thornton said that he and the other authors were opposed to any potential governmental involvement in the reprinting of the book as it would "leave it open to political influence". The film-makers create jolting contrast: the enduring beauty of the Irish landscape, against today’s gleamingly secure pleasure palaces, built after civil war was replaced by something like peace. As a nation, we should hold our heads in shame at the needless deaths recorded in this book, which has been written, bearing in mind, that it is unbiased toward any side, giving an accurate account of the facts, surrounding so many tragedies.

He has previous experience with both of Belfast's main morning newspapers, the News Letter and the Irish News. To do that we approached David McKittrick, then the London Independent's Ireland correspondent, a man already recognised as one of the foremost chroniclers of the Troubles and someone who had a considerable personal archive. Documentarists Michael Hewitt and Diarmuid Lavery have come up with an immensely powerful film about a remarkable artefact: a thumping chronicle written over seven years that stands as an obituary of 3,700 lives taken during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.On 23 October 2019, a film (1 hour, 29 minutes) based on the book Lost Lives was released in the UK for one night only. For anyone interested in Northern Ireland - or in the human cost of conflict everywhere - this is destined to be the defining work.

The information detailed includes the name, date of death, location, profession, religion, age and marital status, together with a brief summary of the circumstances of each death.Over a seven-year period, the authors examined every death which was directly caused by the troubles. Authors David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton interviewed many witnesses and drew on previously published material to list the deaths of the 3,600 men, women and children killed as a result of the Troubles. There are parts which will shock but hopefully the film will underline the message that there mustn't be any more lives lost to the Troubles here.

It was also shown on BBC One NI at 21:00 on 16 February 2020, and on BBC Two at 22:00 on 7 March 2020. All the casualties are remembered here - the RUC officer, the young soldier, the IRA volunteer, the loyalist paramilitary, the Catholic mother, the Protestant worker, and the new-born baby. DoubleBand Films had been keen to do something with the book but David McKittrick, who had worked as a consultant with them on a number of occasions, said he couldn't envisage how anyone could turn Lost Lives into a film or TV programme.Grace lives alone in Ballybrady, a little village on the sublimely beautiful east coast of Northern Ireland. The book was written by the journalists Seamus Kelters of the BBC, David McKittrick of The Independent, and the Belfast journalists Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton.