MILLION BRICKS, A

This video tells the story of Springfield Park, a housing estate built in the early Sixties in West Belfast, made up of both Catholic and Protestant families who lived side by side in harmony. When the Troubles erupted in the early Seventies, the neighborhood was caught in a three-way crossfire between nationalist and loyalist forces and the occupying British Army, forcing scores of families to move out. Today, on the site of what was once Belfast's last religiously mixed community, Protestants and Catholics are separated by the peace line, a wall of a million bricks. Blending interviews with former Springfield Park residents and archival footage, the video movingly documents the political trauma that beset Northern Ireland for three decades.

Directed by Frank Martin and Seamus Kelters
1999, 60 minutes
Purchase: $310 Classroom Rental: $125

*** Good "...a poignant picture...a useful addition to larger collections with interest in current Irish history (or urban planning)...recommended."-Video Librarian

"Visuals are very good...tells a moving story."-School Library Journal

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