Military and War - 14 Days of Terror - March 1988

Over fourteen days in March 1988, a sequence of traumatic events shook Northern Ireland to its core and shocked the world. But it was also 14 days that compelled one man, Redemptorist priest Fr Alec Reid, to find a way out of the deadly cycle of violence. This BBC Northern Ireland documentary covers the deadly attacks which occurred within a two week period in March 1988. The first was a failed attempt by terrorists to murder citizens in Gibraltar - all three were executed by SAS special forces who had been tipped off by a high-level informer inside the IRA. At their joint funeral back in Belfast, Loyalist paramilitary assassin Michael Stone launched a heroic, single-handed assault on the IRA leadership - killing three men but was caught by police at the scene. At the funeral of another terrorist a few days later, two British peacekeepers accidentally drove into the path of the cortege and were attacked, mutilated and murdered by crazed mourners to satisfy their anti-British, sectarian bloodlust. During this period it seemed as if Northern Ireland was slipping into an all-out civil war.