The recent release of Peter Taylor’s documentary Our Dirty War: The British State and the IRA looks at those who were brutally interrogated by state forces and paramilitary enforcement units during Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Taylor sheds fresh light on the families of informers, or those labelled informers, who suffered enormously (and often silently). Invariably when we direct our sympathy to the innocent civilians in this bitter sectarian war, we negate the memory of those who suffered disproportionately and also in stigma. Commentators remind us that whatever the blinkered morality of a “dirty war”, it cannot hope to lessen the suffering of family members. The hatred of those deemed traitors is common to conflicts around the world, but ultimately the families of all victims mourn their tragic loss. State actors and the paramilitary dead of the Troubles are remembered in ‘rolls of honour’, stone memorials, commemorations and events. The families of informers or suspected informers have little community support, no political support and were forgotten by the state. Particularly in republican areas, a state agent in the family was a mark of shame.

Operation Kenova into the activities of the IRA’s spy catcher Freddie Scappaticci gave these families some hope of finding out the truth when it was launched in 2016. For example, Johnny Dignam, abducted and murdered by the IRA along with two other men in 1992 was almost certainly a victim of Freddie Scappaticci . There can be little doubt that Scappaticci, head of PIRA internal security, known as “the nutting squad” was ruthless. It has been suggested by clinical experts that Scappaticci was........

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