So – 3,712 death over a period of 40 years. From three year old Jonathan Ball, an English kid killed in Warrington, a town in England, when the IRA planted bombs in litter bins in a shopping mall (a 12 year old boy was also killed in that one) all the way to 91 year old Martha Smylie who was killed by a UDA bomb which was planted at the Imperial Hotel in Belfast. The bomb damaged her old peoples’ home next door and this old lady was badly injured, and died the following day.

The book and the film do not mention peace talks and negotiations that sought to bring a cessation of the conflict. [5] Robert McCrum in his 2000 review of the book for The Guardian wrote that "It is not fiction, though it is full of heartrending stories, any one of which might provide a gifted writer with the bare bones of a shattering novel. It is not biography, though it is full of ordinary people's lives. It is not really journalism, though it has been compiled by four journalists who may, collectively, have just written the book of their career" and that "There is not space to do justice to the scholarly comprehensiveness, the magisterial evenhandedness or the moral integrity of this astonishing book. Now that the Troubles seem to be over, the publication of Lost Lives is perhaps the great monument for which the bloody history of Northern Ireland has been waiting". [1] Reception [ edit ]The aim of the book is to provide a chronological list of all those who have died during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, either through direct violence or indirectly as a result of actions taken during this time. And that is exactly what the authors have done, without prejudice or bias, they have produced an epic work that cuts through all the scandals, finger-pointing and accusations that dominate all the other works written about the Troubles and simply states who, where and how without trying to assess the why (which lets face it no-one has ever really managed to answer properly). John Breslin (7 December 2020). "Lost Lives: Calls to make rare book on the Troubles available to the public". The Belfast Telegraph . Retrieved 1 February 2021.

Lost Lives to have world premiere at 63rd BFI London Film Festival 2019". Northernirelandscreen.co.uk. 9 October 2019. A film based on the book premiered at the 2019 London Film Festival [6] and was broadcast on BBC One in February 2020. [5] The film features voiceovers from the actors Kenneth Branagh, Roma Downey, Adrian Dunbar, Brendan Gleeson, Ciarán Hinds, Sean McGinley, Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt, Stephen Rea, and Bronagh Waugh. It is 90 minutes in duration. The film features graphic contemporary footage of the Troubles that is juxtaposed against imagery of the natural landscape of Northern Ireland including rivers, waterfalls, and a swan. [5] The lives of 18 people from the book are detailed by voice overs in the film. [5] The deaths chosen for inclusion in the film are broadly representative of the ratio of deaths of Irish republicans, Loyalist paramilitaries and forces of the British state. [5] It was announced in January 2021 that the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland had received an archive relating to the book consisting of "265 folders of mainly newspaper cuttings relating to most of those individuals who died as a result of the conflict". [4] The book was published by the Scottish publishers Mainstream Publishing of Edinburgh. It was reprinted in 2008. [3] The book was out of print by December 2020, and Chris Thornton said that he and the surviving authors did not wish the book to be reprinted. [2] Thornton said that much more material had become available since the book was published and he and the other authors had hoped to update it but no publishers were interested. [2] Thornton said that he and the other authors were opposed to any potential governmental involvement in the reprinting of the book as it would "leave it open to political influence". The death of co-author Seamus Kelters also affected them emotionally. Thornton said that "It's wonderful that the book is still being recognised as important...But it's in the past". [2]The film was directed by Michael Hewitt and Dermot Lavery. Hewitt said he felt the actors were not just "lending their voices but giving their voice in support of what the film represents for us" which was "A reminder of the terrible loss, in the hope that we do not repeat the mistakes of our past". Lavery said that the book was "...a riposte, a challenge to all of us, for allowing this terrible loss of life, all this grief and heartache in the place where we lived" and that "You just need to hold the book in your hand and feel the weight of that loss". [5] urn:lcp:isbn_9781840182279:epub:acdafe0d-5d35-470c-a041-a7808125bfe7 Extramarc University of Toronto Foldoutcount 0 Identifier isbn_9781840182279 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t0ns3k28j Invoice 1213 Isbn 184018227X Lccn 00272930 Ocr ABBYY FineReader 11.0 Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.7 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Openlibrary_edition Gareth Cross (22 January 2021). "Lost Lives: NI public records office working through archive material relating to rare book on Troubles deaths". The Belfast Telegraph . Retrieved 1 February 2021. That there should be a similar volume for the victims of all conflicts is self-evident, just as self-evidently there never will be. a b c Robert McCrum (9 January 2000). "Painful memories of the Troubles". The Guardian . Retrieved 1 February 2021.