Northern Spy

Content Warning: This section describes depictions of civil warfare, terrorism, and the aftermath of the Northern Ireland conflict (also known as the Troubles), which feature extensively in the novel.

 “It should already be over, of course. My sister and I were born near the end of the Troubles. We were children in 1998, when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, we painted peace signs and doves on bedsheets and hung them from our windows. It was all meant to be finished then.”

This passage sets up the historical context of the narrative’s plot and contrasts what everyone thought the Good Friday Agreement would achieve with what Flynn Berry’s narrative exposes instead. The promise that the Troubles were over, however, proves to be a false one.

“So it was never peace exactly. The basic argument of the Troubles hadn’t been resolved: most Catholics still wanted a united Ireland, most Protestants wanted to remain part of the UK. The schools were still segregated. You still knew, in every town, which was the Catholic bakery, which was the Protestant taxi firm.”

The author here exposes the fundamental dilemma that fuels the ongoing conflict in her narrative. The political division concerning the state of Northern Ireland remains polarized both in verbal debates and in more physical and visible separations.

“I hoped she would. I liked the thought of her swimming through the limestone arches, bobbing in the water inside the mouth of the caves. It would be like an antidote, the quiet and the spaciousness. The exact opposite of Belfast, of her work as a paramedic, sitting in the back of an ambulance, racing through red lights, steeling herself for the moment when the doors will open.”

Tessa’s hopes for Marian’s vacation to be a reprieve showcase the level of trust and love she had for her sister prior to finding out about her membership in the IRA. There is a note of pride, too, in Tessa’s assessment of her sister’s job: Though it is an arduous task, it is implied that being a paramedic in times of civil war is an essential job.