Hollywood actress Rose McGowan who stars in the new film, Fifty Dead Men Walking, has said that she would have joined the IRA "100 per cent certain" if she had lived in the North of Ireland.

Rose plays an IRA volunteer in the film about an informer. At the Toronto Film Festival she said, " I imagine that, had I grown up in Belfast, I would have 100 per cent been in the IRA. My heart just broke for the cause and I have a lot of respect for the intelligence and the honour that these people carried. Violence is not to be played out daily and provide an answer to problems but I understand it."

Predictably there has been a negative reaction from some to Rose's comments but we clearly have here a young woman who is honestly trying to understand and empathise with our people in the North.