David McCloskey

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How do you run an undercover agent inside an organization like the IRA?

And do you let your agent commit murder?

This is a story that neither the IRA nor the British state have wanted to be told.

Welcome to The Rest is Classified.

I'm David McCloskey.

And I'm Gordon Carrera.

And today we are starting a series looking at maybe one of the most controversial agents ever in British intelligence history.

A man with the code name Stakenife, a British spy at the heart of the Irish Republican Army, the IRA.

And we do a lot of stories

obviously on this podcast about agents inside groups, CIA agents or assets inside the KGB,

assets inside MI6, Russian assets inside MI6.

We look at their motivation for doing what they do, how they're handled, what happens with the intelligence they provide and the difference it makes.

And this story is similar in many respects.

It's about an agent that's being run inside the heart of the IRA, but it has a twist that is, I think, much darker and much more complicated.

than many of the agent running stories that we've told so far.

This entire story is set against the conflict in Northern Ireland, often called the Troubles, and probably worth setting the context a little bit.

So Ulster Plantation, Gordon, go ahead.