How the 'ceasefire babies' forgot the Troubles
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2023
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
They were supposed to be the ‘ceasefire babies’ – a new generation that grew up in peace – but young people south of the border seem to be forgetting the conflict. We hear about new research from The Sunday Times, and speak to a friend of the young journalist Lyra McKee, whose shooting on the streets of Derry in 2019 was a reminder not to take peace for granted.
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- Alison Millar, documentary director.
- Rachel Lavin, senior data and digital graphics journalist, The Times and The Sunday Times.
Host: Manveen Rana.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Like today, it was a good Friday, 25 years ago, when history began a new chapter. |
| 0:18.5 | An agreement that unites loyalist and republican, unionist and nationalist leaders in a wide-ranging |
| 0:24.7 | historical accord. |
| 0:27.2 | People hadn't dared hope that it was possible, but after three decades of sectarian violence, |
| 0:34.6 | you've domestically known as the Troubles, which had unleashed a reign of terror and killings |
| 0:40.6 | across Northern Ireland, suddenly everything was about to change. |
| 0:47.5 | I said when I arrived here on Wednesday night that I felt the hand of history upon us. |
| 0:53.9 | Today I hope that the burden of history cannot long-last start to be lifted from our shoulders. |
| 1:10.7 | The good Friday agreement put a stop to the bombs and bullets, and instead it ushered in |
| 1:17.6 | a new era of hope, as politicians reached across the divide to work together. |
| 1:24.9 | This was the Ulster Unionist Party's David Trimble and Sinn Fein's Jerry Adams. |
| 1:31.7 | I look forward to the future. |
| 1:34.5 | I hope that the people of Northern Ireland will endorse this agreement. |
| 1:38.9 | I hope that we will be able to move together, forward together in a positive way. |
| 1:45.2 | I see a great opportunity there for us to start a healing process here in Northern Ireland. |
| 1:51.7 | We are here reaching out to hand a friendship and representing our electorate. |
| 1:59.9 | These negotiations and the new arrangements which result from them are part of our collective |
| 2:05.6 | journey from the failures of the past towards a future together as equals. |
| 2:16.2 | But in recent years that ear of peace has taken a battering. |
| 2:22.2 | At one of Belfast's peace lines last night the peace was broken. |
| 2:29.2 | In the hands of teenagers, petrol bombs thrown in both directions over the wall. |
| 2:37.2 | It was four years ago on the night before Good Friday that Northern Ireland saw just how fragile that peace was |
... |
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