We've already heard those unfortunate comments from one of the stars of the film Rose McGowan, and the producers backing away from them, which seems somewhat two-faced considering the latest controversy beginning to raise its head.

The man behind the story, Martin McGartland, who was the British agent undercover in the IRA and is the basis of the film, already struggled with allowing his moral rights to be waived and the film shown, and now he's criticising the film for hiring ex-IRA members behind the scenes.

It seems that the film production hired IRA volunteers to not only provide security on the production, but also to give creative input during the filming in Belfast, and Martin McGartland doesn't think that was such a great idea.

His comments come through The Hollywood Reporter, and open with the article placing them firmly at the director Kari Skogland with an opening editorial addition. However I'm going to leave that bit out just in case he was referring to the whole production and not just the director.

“...should certainly not have been negotiating with the IRA to be able to film in certain areas of Belfast and she should never have allowed former IRA terrorists to be on set while filming”

Something I glossed over in the original story of Rose McGowan 's comments aligning herself with the IRA, had she been living there during the days of terrorism and British Army control, were the comments about the hiring of IRA volunteers.

Fifty Dead Men Walking had hired them not only to provide security on the set during the Belfast filming but also to give them the on-screen authenticity for making bombs and torturing people whom they were interrogating.

McGartland also went on to criticise the Canadian government for being involved in a film that, and I quote from the original article:

“...was made with the help, and apparent support, of a terrorist organization.”

Well you can see why there would be added controversy on this issue, even with the current state of peace in Ireland. After all the IRA are responsible for some terrible acts in the past, and now they're being employed on a film set to recreate some of those events.

I saw one comment from a reader on another site that featured the McGowan comments yesterday and they were taking her comment and replacing the IRA with various other terrorist organisations around the world and asking if any of those would have been more or less palatable.

The same question could be asked here. Would the hiring of the members of any other terrorist organisation be any more palatable? Then there's the argument that there's stories to be told about the British-Irish conflict and what better way to tell them than to involve the people who were in it?

Of course one might question if Martin McGartland should now be making these comments when he waived his moral rights for the film after a negotiation that resulted in a doubling of his fee.