BBC2's season marking 25 years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland continues with the second of three programmes which were originally banned.

Tonight sees the first network showing of a 1973 film by controversial director Kenneth Griffith, the actor who found a second career in documentaries that seem to offend the establishment. In this case the offence was taken by Lord Grade, head of ITC, the company that commissioned the film, who felt that it drew too sympathetic a picture of patriot hero Michael Collins and the Irish fight for independence.

Collins gained his reputation during the 1916 Easter Rising. At one time the British government put a £10,000 price on his head, but so popular was he that he could walk the streets of Dublin without being betrayed. He ran intelligence operations for the IRA, and became commander-in-chief of the army and head of the rebel Irish government when civil war broke out over the issue of home rule. He was killed in an ambush at the age of 32. George Bernard Shaw provided the title: "I rejoice in Michael's memory and will not be so disloyal as to snivel over his valiant death.... Hang up your brightest colours in his honour."