A soldier’s claim that the Reverend Ian Paisley funded an Ulster Volunteer Force bomb on a reservoir at the height of the Troubles, is to be aired by the BBC.
The new seven-part series is also set to screen archive footage of Martin McGuinness sitting in a car and showing off a gun to young children.
Spotlight On The Troubles: A Secret History, probes the earliest days of Northern Ireland’s conflict using previously unseen footage, formerly classified documents and new testimony. It marks the 50th anniversary of the start of the Troubles.
In the first instalment, David Hancock, a former solider, claims a police officer told him the Rev Paisley funded the 1969 bombing of the Silent Valley reservoir, Belfast’s main water supply.
Rev Paisley, who died in 2014, consistently and strongly denied any link with any paramilitary group during his life (pictured: the Rev Paisley at Stormont in 1999)
A string of bombings were carried out on water and electricity supplies by Loyalists between March and April of that year.
At the time the Rev Paisley was in prison for organising illegal counter-demonstrations.
The attacks were initially blamed on the IRA before it emerged Loyalists were responsible.
Then Prime Minister Terence O’Neill was attempting to liberalise discriminatory practices and the attacks were seen as an effort to discredit Republicans.
The documentary will also show footage of Martin McGuinness showing off a gun to children (pictured: Mr McGuinness in Belfast in 2001)
Mr O’Neill resigned following the resulting political crisis.
The programme also exhibits a formerly classified government document which reveals how the Rev Paisley’s speeches and sermons were recorded in an effort to prosecute him, as well as police records from the time which drew links between him and the UVF.
Rev Paisley, who died in 2014, consistently and strongly denied any link with any paramilitary group during his life.
The Rev Ivan Foster, a colleague of Rev Paisley at that time, distanced the movement against Mr O’Neill from Loyalist violence, telling the programme while men from the UVF may have attended their protests, acts of violence were wrong.
The Spotlight programme also shines new light on the late Mr McGuinness’ involvement with the IRA.
Mr McGuinness admitted to being a member of the IRA while giving evidence to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.
The programme shows archive footage of the IRA assembling a car bomb in Londonderry.
Former IRA member Shane Paul O’Doherty identifies a man walking in the clip as Mr McGuinness.
Footage is also shown of Mr McGuinness sitting in a car showing a gun to children.
David Hancock, a former solider (pictured), claims a police officer told him the Rev Paisley funded the 1969 bombing of the Silent Valley reservoir, Belfast’s main water supply
The arrival of the army in Northern Ireland to relieve a riot weary RUC is also explored in the 90-minute programme, and how soldiers were first welcomed by nationalists before becoming reviled, as well as the controversial introduction of internment, collapse of the Stormont parliament and some of the most poignant murders of the early Troubles.
Later in the series, the Spotlight team will investigate early attempts to end the conflict, the secret intelligence war against the IRA, the role of Loyalists in the violence, collusion and the path to peace.
Presenter Darragh MacIntyre said the challenge for him was to ‘bring new material to light which might in turn give a new or better understanding of what happened here’.
BBC Spotlight reporters Jennifer O’Leary, Darragh MacIntyre, Mandy McAuley for a seven part BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight series on the Troubles
‘We had of course an awful lot of help in where to look for new material – from those many journalists and historians who themselves have turned over so much of the ground that we planned to travel. But at a certain point it was down to us, the team working on the project, to search on more time in the box of files, to knock one more door, to make one more phone call, to make sure that we had done our earnest best to get to the truth,’ he said.
‘But I have no illusions, a huge distance has yet to be travelled before anyone gets anything like the full story of what happened here. That journey may never be finished.’
Spotlight On The Troubles: A Secret History will be shown on BBC 1 Northern Ireland and across the UK on BBC 4 on September 10 at 8.30pm.