willie carlin, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me.lly quite extraordinary having you in the studio given you were an undercover spy in the ‘70s and the ‘80s at an extraordinarily dangerous, sensitive time in northern ireland and you then went in hiding, you lived in secret. why have you now, later in life, decided to come out of the shadows? i think it's because it's time. you know, i'm 71 now. and for the past, since 1985 to quite recently, i've been reading books about 50 dead men walking and how i saved and i thought, when is anybody ever going to write a story about the truth of what has happened in derry? i've read many books about belfast, armagh, newry. so i thought, 0k, i'lljust go back over my memory and see where it all fits in. my original manuscript starts the day i was born. well, i'm going to stop you right there because here you sit telling this story that has been long kept secret, and i think we do have to begin at the beginning because i think it is, for many people i think watching and listening to this, it's going

but does it, willie carlin, if you like it was worth it? absolutely., albert reynolds, in heasley, secretary of state for northern ireland, and just think to myself, somewhere along the road, if there is going to be a big boulder erected for that story, in the foundations there is a little willie carlin. the other thing to think about is you also, if you cite your eyes, can see so much of the bad stuff that happened in the name of the british state during that conflict and you, i mentioned at the beginning, where part of this dirty war, the secret war of informers and double agents and people who were in essence giving secret information which is deadly to the deaths of many people in northern ireland. there is now a call forfull accountability. example, the intelligence operative known as stea k intelligence operative known as steak knife, he was ultimately planted at the very top of the ira's internal security operation. he was working for the british but it seems he commanded the assassination of a number of other british informers. does the truth n