A new documentary examines the history of Star of the Sea, a junior football club in Rathcoole, north Belfast, that brought together Catholic and Protestant boys in the late 1960s before the Troubles tore the community apart. The film, titled Réalt na Mara: An Peil, Na Trioblóidí agus An Iarmhairt (Star of the Sea: The Football, The Troubles, and the Aftermath), airs on TG4 on Tuesday, October 20th.

The club was formed from a local Catholic secondary school but was open to all, and was managed by Dr Liam Conlon. Among its players were Bobby Sands, who later became an IRA hunger-striker and died in 1981, and Terry Nicholl and Michael Acheson, who later joined the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

Raymond McCord, another former player whose son Raymond jnr was killed by the UVF in 1997, says of his former teammates: "They weren't the guys I knew. They chose to go down that road. They had a choice."

Some players left Northern Ireland to escape the violence. Dessie Black, a Catholic, moved to Guernsey for work as a blocklayer, and his best friend Willie Caldwell, a Protestant, followed soon after. Caldwell said he socialised in both Catholic and Protestant areas, but decided "the best thing for me is to get out."

The documentary also covers the murder of McCord's son. The Police Ombudsman found in 2002 that the RUC's Special Branch colluded with loyalist paramilitaries and that the murder investigation was deliberately obstructed. Geordie Hussey, another former player, said the killers attempted to shoot Raymond jnr, but the gun jammed, and they beat him with bricks.

The film is directed by James Wynne, who says it highlights "quiet heroes" who worked for peace. Wynne says Dr Conlon's ethos of bringing people together was "literally 60 years ahead of his time". Conlon also gave people use of his holiday home in Donegal.

McCord visits his son's grave in Newtownabbey in the film's final scenes, though it does not show that three previous gravestones were desecrated by loyalist paramilitaries.