Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Oh yes, ranging from fictionalizations of real events (Walking to School is an example here, basically a fictionalization of the various issues kids crossing sectarian lines to get to school had, of which the Holy Cross incident in 2001 is probably the most prominent), to Across the Barricades (Romeo and Juliet but with more kneecappings) and the like. I think there is even the Iliad but with the Troubles instead of the Greek/Trojan war. Garth Ennis (writer of the Boys and Preacher etc.) has Troubled Souls and For A Few Troubles More graphic novels. For movies and TV you have Derry Girls, '71, Belfast, Omagh, etc.
Non-fiction, I'd recommend From a Clear Blue Sky, which was written by the grandson of Lord Mountbatten. As a child he survived the bombing of his grandfathers fishing boat by the Provos, but his twin did not, so it gives a perspective on traumatic events and loss. Armed Struggle by Richard English, looks more at the evolution of the IRA since the Easter Rising in 1916. Lost Lives by David McKittrick, goes over the stories of those killed, some of which are pretty mundane. Bandit Country The IRA and South Armagh is a staple for a reason.
Voice from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland is excellent all round, Families at War: Voice from the Troubles may fit your bill, though I have not read it, but it is on my list. Supposedly it looks more at the family experiences during the Troubles.
I probably could go on and on, as there is a huge amount of literature generated about the Troubles in general.
As another anecdote, my grandfather told me that he once dug up a box of rifles that had been buried in his fields by one of the Loyalist paramilitaries (probably UDA or UVF given his location), but that he was more mad about how stupid they were in burying it in the middle of a field that was obviously going to ploughed at some point, rather than burying them along the hedgeline where they would likely have been undisturbed for decades. So he marched down to the local Orange Lodge (of which he was a member) and gave off about it over a pint. Mysteriously the guns vanished overnight, with some bottles of potcheen left in their stead. That's where I got the potcheen I would give you behind your mothers back when you were sick, he said. So you can thank those lazy eejits for the hair on your chest.
I had a feeling that sentence would come back to bite me, especially since I actually wrote a movie review of '71 on the old sub about 3 years ago. I've also seen Derry Girls (feels a bit forced IMO, but okay), and read Bandit Country. Sounds like a lot of other potentially interesting things to read too, and thanks for the anecdote.
The parallels with our current culture war are part of what makes it interesting. They did seem to also have the "politicization of everything" effect - ordinary citizens who aren't particularly political for either side having to worry about the politics of the people and businesses they interact with to do mundane day-to-day things.
Derry Girls is very up and down, but the thing I think it does well is juxtapose mundane concerns with the things we get used to (soldiers searching school buses, having to cross armed checkpoints just to go to the other side of town, paramilitaries stealing cars etc, with the sometimes shocking, large bombs, shootings of someone you know etc.
I have a very vivid memory of going about my day as a kid, maybe 11 or 12 and coming home to my uncle and parents having very hushed conversations while watching the news, where a large bombing had taken place in Belfast. Then 10 minutes later i was out playing kerby with my friends. Just the things you can get used to.
Now I live in the US I am not particularly worried their Culture War will go hot. Up until recently i lived in a rural very Red town. Yet I work in academia, so almost all my colleagues are Blue. When I had bbqs or parties and those worlds collided, there was no boom. As different as they are, they are (from the pov of this outsider at least) no where near as opposed as back home. Indeed even very blue progressives are often more patriotic and God fearing than Conservatives in the UK.
I think social media and the like makes it look much worse than it is.
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