Don't go against the family

It was inevitable that as the conflict in Northern Ireland wound down, some of the dirty details about what went on over the last 35 years would start to come out. And so it is that the IRA and British governments have been stunned by the naming of a British double-agent at the heart of IRA operations since the late 1970s. He was named by an obscure website on Saturday and several Irish and Scottish papers printed the name on Sunday. Prior restraint of the media is much easier in England and so those papers seem to have held off printing the name until Monday; it is also in Monday's New York Times. In a weird Godfather echo, he is Alfredo "Freddie" Scappaticci -- and defying the stereotype of IRA activists as products of family where resentments of British oppression in Ireland have been nursed for generations, he is the son of Italian immigrants. Freddie seems to have held just about every important operational position in the IRA, most damagingly as head of their internal investigations division. On the police shows, those IAD guys are always good for a bit of bureaucratic skullduggery against our frontline heroes. But falling afoul of the IRA's version of IAD usually meant serious injury or death. It seems certain that Freddie and the British cultivated some false informer leads to protect themselves, leading to the deaths of innocent people.

Needless to say, Freddie's future will be spent in a witness protection program. He was hurriedly moved to England over the weekend when his name was revealed [but see update]. And there is a very old piece of IRA lore that may give Freddie some sleepless nights. 121 years ago this week, an IRA predecessor group, the Invincibles, assassinated the two senior civil servants in Ireland. Several suspects were arrested, and one of them, James Carey, became a prosecution witness against the others, who were executed. Carey was provided with a new life in South Africa. But another member of the Invincibles, Pat O'Donnell, tracked him there and killed him on a boat between Cape Town and Natal. O'Donnell was of course himself executed and memorialised in a song. We suspect that the tune is being rehearsed in a few Belfast bars this evening.

UPDATE: Freddie may still be in Tahoe ..er I mean Belfast.