It was a scene that seemed more at home in a police drama.
Two men were filmed carrying a bomb into a car, then a red-haired woman calmly drove him to his destination as music played in the background.
Moments earlier, she had alerted the authorities, saying from a telephone box: ‘We’ve just planted a bomb in the Queen’s University Sports Club. It’ll go off in twenty minutes.’
The 1972 bombing was just one shocking moment captured by an American documentary team led by academic J. Bowyer Bell.
Bell’s footage also showed the moment of the explosion, which injured several people.
His documentary was lost for decades after only a fleeting airing following its release, but has now been revealed in the new BBC 4 program The Secret Army after reporter Darragh MacIntyre tracked down some of those involved in its production.
It was a scene that seemed more at home in a police drama. Two men were filmed carrying a bomb in a car, then a red-haired woman calmly drove him to his destination while music played in the background
Bell’s documentary, also called The Secret Army, was made with the permission of the top figures of the IRA.
Irish broadcaster Tim Pat Coogan says in the program broadcast last week: ‘These hardened guerrillas, who were so dependent on secrecy, went in front of the cameras and basically stuck their heads on the block.’
The criminals behind several attacks were shown without masks.
The documentary also captured secret IRA training classes for recruits, attempts to shoot down helicopters in Derry and a meeting in Belfast led by Seamus Twomey, who later became the organisation’s chief of staff.
The IRA allowed Bell to create the program in the belief that 1972 would be their ‘year of victory’.
They hoped that the film would serve as propaganda and bring in more money from American sympathizers.
Moments earlier, she had alerted the authorities, saying from a telephone box: ‘We’ve just planted a bomb in the Queen’s University Sports Club. It will go off in 20 minutes.”
The 1972 bombing was just one shocking moment captured by an American documentary team led by academic J. Bowyer Bell. Bell’s footage also showed the moment of the explosion, which injured several people
J Bowyer Bell’s film premiered in a New York pub, but his attempts to air the film on US networks were rebuffed
The film premiered in a New York pub, but Bell’s attempts to air the film on American networks were rebuffed.
Leon Gildin, co-producer of the project, says: “I showed it to Viacom; They loved it.
‘They offered me a contract for worldwide rights. What happened next? Viacom took over the worldwide rights and never sold a copy.’
Bell himself believed that British intelligence had convinced authorities to prevent his film from gaining more attention.
His friend Roberto Mitrotti says in the program: ‘The British government was too afraid of the consequences the film could have for the Irish community in the US, a very powerful, wealthy community.
“So the British government, the Foreign Office, decided to put pressure on the film and put pressure on the American government to stop the film.”
Mr. MacIntyre traveled as far as Arizona in search of documents and anyone still alive involved in the making of the 1972 film.
The film’s director was Zwy Aldouby, a Nazi hunter with ties to the Mossad, the feared Israeli intelligence service.
Gildin added that Bell and Aldouby told him that British intelligence viewed the film while it was being developed in London before it was sent to the US.
However, no one was arrested in connection with the film.
Also featured in the documentary is Martin McGuinness (right), a senior member of the IRA at the time. A photo shows him in an IRA military uniform at a funeral
Also featured in the documentary is Martin McGuinness, a senior member of the IRA at the time.
Clips show him driving through Derry with weapons and preparing a car bomb. A photo shows him in an IRA military uniform at a funeral.
He subsequently played a key role in the Irish peace process and served as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2007 until shortly before his death in 2017.
The BBC was first made aware of the existence of a copy of Bell’s documentary in 2018, when a source presented a BBC researcher with a box of old tapes.
The conflict in Northern Ireland, known as The Troubles, lasted from the late 1960s until 1998, when the Good Friday Agreement was signed.
Nearly 2,000 civilians were killed in atrocities committed by both republican and loyalist groups.
In early 1972, before Bell’s film was made, British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians in Derry in what became known as Bloody Sunday.