The Troubles

3,600

estimated total dead

Each dot below represents 1,000 human lives. Scroll to watch the scale unfold.

Military Dead

1,500 soldiers killed in combat, from wounds, or from disease. Each = 1,000 lives.

Irish Republicans (IRA) — 400 military dead

British State & Loyalists — 1,100 military dead

Civilian Dead

2,100 civilians killed — from violence, famine, disease, and displacement. Wars are not fought only by soldiers.

Civilian dead — 2,100

Deadliest Engagements

The Omagh Bombing29

incl. 29 civilians

Warrenpoint Ambush and the Mountbatten Killing22

incl. 4 civilians

The Birmingham Pub Bombings21

incl. 21 civilians

Bloody Sunday14

incl. 14 civilians

Internment and the Ballymurphy Massacre11

incl. 11 civilians

The Enniskillen Bombing11

incl. 11 civilians

The 1981 Hunger Strike10

Bloody Friday9

incl. 7 civilians

For Perspective

How The Troubles's dead compare to other conflicts and events.

The Troubles — total dead3,600

Civilians killed (about half of all deaths)1,840

British security forces killed1,000

Republican paramilitaries killed400

Total killed in the Troubles3,500

Milestones of Loss

29 dead

The 1998 Omagh bombing, killing 29 people plus two unborn children, was the single deadliest attack of the entire conflict — and came months after the peace was signed.

1,840 dead

Roughly half of the more than 3,500 people killed in the Troubles were civilians — the ordinary people of Northern Ireland caught between the paramilitaries and the state.

3,500 dead

In a population of around 1.5 million, some 3,500 deaths meant almost everyone in Northern Ireland knew someone killed or injured — a proportion equivalent to hundreds of thousands in a country the size of Britain.

All figures are historical estimates and vary across sources. The true human cost of war is impossible to fully quantify — these numbers represent the best scholarly consensus. Each number was a person with a name, a family, and a life unlived.