Review: ‘Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland’ grapples with the Troubles through emotional testimonies

An oral history with pictures, “Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland” is a five-part journey through the three-decade political-sectarian conflict familiarly and conservatively known as “the Troubles.” Driven by the reminiscences and observations of people who lived through it, it is something of a companion piece to director James Bluemel‘s 2020 “Once Upon a Time in Iraq,” about that country in the wake of the 2003 U.S. invasion. Patrick Kielty, whose father was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries, turned to comedy, performing sometimes in a terrorist balaclava: “You wanted to show people that this sadness you were carrying,” he says, “this brokenness you had, wasn’t everything about you.” Participants in the PBS docuseries “Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland.” A section on the nonsectarian, anti-authoritarian Belfast punk scene focuses on Teri Hooley, who had a record store and label there, and declares that if his kids ever asked him what he did in the Troubles, “I wanted to say I partied a lot, I drank, did drugs and had a good time, and I didn’t kill anybody.” Of the Harp Bar, where the scene was centered, Yvonne Cowan, whose husband Greg was and is a member of the punk band the Outcasts, recalls, “You knew you were in a safe place. I mean, it was a dump, but it was our dump.” While the causes, progress and end of the Troubles are broadly delineated and its major events dutifully remarked upon — Bloody Sunday, Bloody Friday, the Battle of the Bogside, the Maze prison hunger strikes, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which brought the violence to an end — the strength of the series lies in how it honors those who have come to talk about them. The implicit theme of “Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland” is, indeed, time, and the past that is always present, even for those able to move on from it.