The Troubles refers to the war in Northern Ireland between Unionists for the United Kingdom and Republicans in favour of a unified Ireland. This bloody fight is too-neatly bookended by a civil rights march in Londonderry on 5 October 1968 and the the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998. Northern Ireland was a place synonymous with murder, bombs, hit-squads, vicious bastards, shootings, victims of liberal bigots, prison and intimidation. You can read about the history of Northern Ireland in a thousand books. Where to begin? Well, Lost Lives by David McKittrick
(All captions are original. the fourth picture down was headlined ‘Future Terrorists’ on the Getty Archives.)
31st October 1974: Children play on the corner of Independent St in Belfast ignoring the armed soldiers on patrol. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
July 1970: Children mocking an Army patrol in Belfast. (Photo by Malcolm Stroud/Express/Getty Images)
July 1970: Armed British soldiers impose a curfew on the Falls Road in Belfast. (Photo by Malcolm Stroud/Express/Getty Images)
7th December 1971: Children jeer at British soldiers while a fire smoulders in the street behind them. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
12th August 1971: A view of two children in the crowded market area of Belfast re-enacting the shooting of four men the day before. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)
13th May 1981: A Belfast girl chats to a soldier out patrolling the streets in the Falls Road area. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)
July 1970: Armed British soldiers impose a curfew on the Falls Road in Belfast. (Photo by Express/Express/Getty Images)
13th May 1981: Schoolboys in a Catholic area of Belfast at play on the streets near a British soldier on patrol. (Photo by Rob Taggart/Central Press/Getty Images)
Masked members of the loyalist paramilitary organization, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) outside the Shankhill Road Post Office in Belfast, Northern Ireland, June 1972. (Photo by David Lomax/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Scots Grey soldiers on patrol in Belfast. (Photo by Chris Ware/Getty Images)
Young children playing with the wreckage of a burnt out car in Belfast. (Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images)
1971: A British soldier searching a Belfast teenager. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
17th August 1969: A British soldier stands on patrol at a street corner in Belfast, while two children mount their own kerbside guard. (Photo by Wesley/Keystone/Getty Images)
circa 1975: Three children gather by a burnt out van plastered with IRA posters, in the predominantly Catholic Bogside area of Londonderry. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
2nd February 1972: A demonstration in London’s Hyde Park against the ‘Bloody Sunday’ massacre when British Paratroopers shot dead 13 civilians on a civil rights march in Derry City. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)
A broken-hearted mother comforts her young son Darren at the funeral of his brother, 28 year old Constable G Martin, who was blown up by a booby-trapped lorry in Belfast. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
28th October 1971: A young boy walking past nationalist graffiti in Ulster. (Photo by Fulvio Grimaldi/Keystone Features/Getty Images)
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