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U2 'Troubles' video released online

A U2 video criticised for its "Troubles' imaging" after transforming streets in the New Lodge area of Belfast for a film shoot, was released online yesterday.

The 13-minute short film, which accompanies U2's song Every Breaking Wave, follows a fictional love story in 1980s Belfast.

The short by Belfast-born London-based film-maker Aoife McArdle tells the story of two teenagers, a Catholic boy and a Protestant girl from the Shankill, who fall in love amid the violence of the Troubles.

Scenes show characters jumping on a British armoured vehicle; driving past a burning building; a man being beaten by a British army patrol; the arrest of a character's father and the aftermath of a bomb blast in a residential street, including footage of injured soldiers. The actors' Belfast accents are subtitled.

Familiar landmarks feature in the film including the Harland & Wolff cranes in east Belfast. The video also uses another U2 track, The Troubles, from the Dublin band's latest album, Songs of Innocence. Part of the video was shot in the New Lodge area of north Belfast, where popstar Rihanna caused a stir three years ago when she arrived to film the video for her hit song We Found Love.

U2 band member The Edge has praised Ms McArdle's work, describing it as "extraordinary". "The Aoife McArdle short film expands on the theme of Songs of Innocence which was largely rooted in our experience growing up in the early eighties in Dublin," he said. "Aoife chose west Belfast in the same period, as it was the neighbourhood that was so formative to her."

Reaction on social media to the song's subject matter seemed mixed last night.

One man joked "looks like a fantastic tourist inviting video", while another simply said "beautiful song, stupid video".

But fans on U2's Facebook site were quick to praise the video, calling it "powerful" and "an amazing piece of work".

Camera crews shot footage across the city in December. Several streets in the New Lodge area were transformed into scenes of 1980s Belfast.

At the time, the filming of the video was criticised, with some people in the area claiming it was hurtful to those who had suffered in the Troubles.

People took to social media to voice their anger. One

woman said: "U2 should stop cashing in on 'Troubles' imaging", while another said: "Oh let me guess, yet another song about the Troubles... really get a life guys".

U2's best known Northern Ireland-related song is 1983's Sunday Bloody Sunday, which describes the horror of an observer on Bloody Sunday in Derry but was infamously described by Bono as "not a rebel song".