The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
BBC to air Paisley funded bomb claim
A claim that the Rev Ian Paisley funded a UVF bomb attack on a reservoir, threatening the water supply to Belfast, is set to be aired by the BBC.
The new programme is also set to screen archive footage of Martin McGuinness showing a gun to children.
The examination of the pasts of Northern Ireland’s former first and deputy first ministers, now both deceased, come in the first instalment of a new seven-part BBC Northern Ireland series marking the 50th anniversary of the start of the Troubles.
Spotlight On The Troubles: A Secret History, probes the earliest days of Northern Ireland’s Troubles using clips of previously unseen footage, formerly classified documents and new testimony.
The first instalment, presented by Darragh MacIntyre, traces the heightening unrest between Protestants and Catholics in the late 1960s.
It examines attempts by then prime minister Terence O’Neill to liberalise discriminatory practises against fierce opposition from Mr Paisley.
In the programme, David Hancock, a former soldier, claims a police officer told him that Mr Paisley supplied funding for the bomb on the Silent Valley reservoir, which was the main water supply for Belfast.
The blast was one of a series carried out by Loyalists between March and April 1969 targeting water and electricity installations.
They were initially blamed on the IRA before it emerged that Loyalists were responsible.