“Authentic for some people means blood and guts on a side street.” He walked over to the window and looked out. “Authentic to me means being true to the Republican cause. If you were writing a play about another class of human being things would take a different course. But here is where we are. People here are either true to their Republican or Loyalist traditions or they are not. This is something Shamey Coyle would have known.”

“So what do I do?”

“Well, if I wanted to tell you a story that would suit me as a Republican, I’d have your Shamey Coyle start out as anti-Provo. The Brits shoot his brother and he joins the RA.”

“That seems like he joined out of revenge.”

“Sometimes it’s as simple as that. You’re not born with nationalist convictions. People join the RA for simple reasons.”

“And what does that make Shamey Coyle?”

“It makes him a true blue. Your problem is you’re trying to make him a hero. But that’s not the scenario. I’m giving you the true one. You want a Shamey Coyle who has dramatic possibilities. I’d prefer to see a man I could believe in.” He put out the cigar and dusted his trousers. “You don’t look convinced.”

“I’m trying to work it all out.”

“He’s a complicated man, is Shamey Coyle, right enough. It takes a wee while to invent him. You’d need a few hundred years of history to get him right.” He shook Jack’s hand. “I wouldn’t like your job.”

The group met a few days later. They carried on building up a composite figure of Shamey Coyle, a figure who had to represent an IRA man in every particular, and who became, as a consequence, a typical piece of propaganda for them. For him to be otherwise he could not have done what he did, or lasted as long as he would have had to in prison. Soon Shamey Coyle became a source of endless bickering. Each person had their own vision of how a Republican comes into being. They wanted to make him brainless or else highly intelligent; he would be baby-faced, he would be ugly; then came the possibility of him turning from a patriot into an informer.

“Fuck, just leave him in the RA,” said one of the Northern Ireland lads. “Leave informing out of it.”

“We must be accurate.”

“Fuck you. Let him take a bad trip on acid.”

“Yes, maybe he turns informer,” continued the social-worker. “But what sort of man turns informer?”

“A fucking dick-head, if you ask me.”

“Someone who ultimately does not believe in violence?”

“No,” corrected Jack, “someone who does not believe in the IRA.”

“Are we talking here of a man with high motives?”