The Secret Army review: Extraordinary story of lost IRA documentary told in gripping style

Darragh MacIntyre is the sort of investigative journalist television producers adore. He isn’t opposed to inserting himself into the action, and there will always be a scene or three in one of his reports in which he huffs about, chasing a lead like Hercule Poirot hunting down a murderer.

The footage, discovered by a BBC researcher six years ago, is chilling . In one sequence, Bowyer Bell and Jacob Stern, a composer he hired for the project, accompany Provisionals as they plant explosives in central Derry – part of a bombing blitz that would claim eight lives. “We were very worried if people were going to be injured,” recalled Stern. “It was a hell of an explosion.”‘My colleague has said she’s having marital difficulties.

The Secret Army is two documentaries in one. MacIntyre interviews several former senior Provisionals who appear in the film and are, in the main, unapologetic about the IRA’s activities. Keys To My Life review: Eilish O’Carroll on finding love – ‘We were both straight women living a straight life ... My biggest problem was my Catholic guilt’

“There would be a strong possibility,” says his son, who says Mossad would have noted the support Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was providing to the IRA while simultaneously campaigning for the destruction of Israel. “There is a connection between the IRA and Israel. Gaddafi – he was giving arms to the IRA, Israel was in a very precarious state.”Bowyer Bell brought his film back to the United States where it was snapped up by distributor Viacom . But then it mysteriously passed out of history.

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