To Sean's credit, Cath had been living a double life for almost his entire adult life. He was rather good at deceiving people. As for Mae, well, people didn't suspect her because she was a little girl, no matter how ill tempered.
He looked away when Sean spat out the names of two of the more ugly RIRA incidents. "No, I was still in uni in Dublin when the Belfast Agreement was signed." Not that it hadn't spurred him into joining afterwards, but he'd not been a part of that. He glanced back at Mae, hoping she wouldn't make things worse on that account. Her father had been involved in Omagh.
Then he let out a long breath. "Messerine was after we left Belfast," he explained. "We were setting up a cell in Limerick after our wedding. Went to Carroll's funeral though."
He could have asked Sean what he knew about Martin o'Hagan or Billy Wright. His mother had been a victim of that bastard's crusade against the Catholics. He wasn't making excuses, he was telling the truth.