Northern Spy

Tessa immediately confronts Marian about being in the IRA and whether she planted the bomb at St. George’s Market by using Finn as a cover. Despite her assurances that Finn was never in any danger, Tessa is incensed with her sister. Marian entreats her to listen to her side of the story. She explains that she was recruited when she was 20 by Seamus Malone, a Marxist theorist who had supplied her with anti-colonial literature when she was grieving a friend who’d overdosed. Her recruitment was, she reveals, progressive. Seamus only asked for time at her apartment, where he and others could meet for an hour. Later, she was sent to an isolated compound to learn combat training and nighttime maneuvers. She also learned how to make bombs and became the bombmaker for her unit, though she claims no bombs she made hurt anyone. Marian is unrepentant as she explains this to her sister. She admits that the situation is complicated; she wants a free Ireland, and she does love the people in her unit, but ultimately, she’s now an informant to MI5 because she wants the secret peace talks between the IRA and the British government to work. Now that Marian is already suspected of defection by the IRA, however, she can no longer meet with her MI5 handler,