The BBC's Irish troubles Television, conflict and Northern Ireland [Hardcover]

This book explores how news and information about the conflict in Northern Ireland was disseminated through the most accessible, powerful and popular form of media: television. It focuses on the BBC and considers how its broadcasts complicated the 'Troubles' by challenging decisions, policies and tactics developed by governments trying to defeat a stubborn insurgency that threatened national security.

The book uses a wide array of highly original sources to consider how Britain's public service broadcaster upset the efforts of a number of governments to control the narrative of a conflict that claimed over 3,500 lives and caused deep emotional scarring to thousands of citizens in Northern Ireland, Britain and the Irish Republic. Using recently released archival material from the BBC and a variety of government archives the book addresses the contentious relationship between broadcasting officials, politicians, the army, police and civil service from the outbreak of violence throughout the 1980s.

Introduction

1. The Origins of the BBC in Northern Ireland

2. 'The Troubles' arrive

3. Balance? The BBC in Northern Ireland 197278

4. Roy Mason, the BBC and the second battle of Culloden

5. Margaret Thatcher and 'the oxygen of publicity'

Index

The story Savage narrates in this book is a fascinating one, and with great relevance for the broader political and cultural history of contemporary Britain and Ireland. - Aidan J. Beatty, New Hibernia Review

Overall, Savage provides us with an absorbing account of the challenges which the BBC,
as a public service broadcaster, had to navigate in the midst of three decades of seemingly
intractable conflict, which, at times, felt like a civil war to those who lived in the worst-affected areas. It is unlikely, given the specificity of the subject matter, to alter our understanding about the fundamentals of the conflict in terms of its causes, course, andlÓ@