Has anyone been watching Game Of Thrones?  The HBO fantasy series was mostly filmed in Northern Ireland (with brief excursions to Malta when they needed sunshine) – Magheramorne Quarry, Castle Ward and Tullymore Forest provided most of the exteriors, while all the interiors were shot in the Paint Hall movie studio in the heart of the Titanic Quarter.

I was watching initially just to play Spot The Location, but I got completely sucked into the story – a huge, labyrinthine web of double-crossing kingdoms and political intrigue, played out across a brutal wintry medieval landscape, with the hint that some ancient evil is stirring…  what’s not to love?!  It all really picked up pace in the most recent episodes; last week ended with an executioner’s axe hurtling towards the head of one of the most fascinating principal characters; roll credits; Susan and I looked at each other – surely they’re not killing him off, are they?  Next episode starts with the blood-soaked axe and the executioner holding the severed head aloft.  Oh, OK, they are then.

As that description indicated, it’s not for the faint-hearted; the week before it started I was telling all the Walking Tour groups and Dock Walkers to tune in for the first episode;  as I watched the episode – featuring gory death, incest, a little boy being chucked off a castle wall and lots of wenches – I made a mental note to footnote my recommendation with an 18 Certificate in future!

The great news is that Game Of Thrones has been green-lit for another series – good news not just for those of us now hooked on the drama, but also for the thousands of jobs it will bring to Northern Ireland as the crew return to the Paint Hall within the next few weeks.  (Great activity today as the sets were being built and prepared for the crew’s arrival.)   And it’s just great news for Northern Ireland that TV of this quality is being filmed here.  Some of the backdrops might look familiar, but there is absolutely nothing about Game Of Thrones that looks low-budget, parochial, small scale – it is epic in every sense of the word, and competes with TV made anywhere else in the world.

So here in Northern Ireland we’re now making world-class TV, preparing to open a world-class Titanic visitor attraction, and in the TQ building the largest city redevelopment project in Europe.  We’re not a provincial backwater any more; we’re rediscovering some of that spirit that made us the world’s biggest and best shipbuilders a century ago.  Which makes it all the more frustrating when the minority of people still stuck in the past try to put the brakes on all this progress; I’ve been finishing off this blog post watching the news about the riots in East Belfast last night – a crushing reminder that even while we’re surrounded by all these signs of new hope and bold enterprise, there are those who can’t stop re-enacting the clueless, pointless cycle of violence.

We’re not building that ugly, tit-for-tat world any more.  We’re living in a Northern Ireland which is home to multi-million pound TV shows and international golfing heroes, a city which is rooted in its past but running towards a new future.  Let’s not lose hold of that hope.