“Law-and-order problem” or war

“Law-and-order problem” or war is the novel’s recurring dispute over how violence in Northern Ireland is named, and what that naming permits institutions and individuals to ignore. The disagreement surfaces in meals and domestic conversation, but it reaches into courts, policing, school life, and the records used to prosecute young people. Against official language that treats events as a matter of public order, Michael Agnew insists that political conditions shape both policing and the cases brought before the courts. The novel gives that claim weight through the evidence Cushla later encounters, while also showing how contested and morally compromised every account remains.

The Terms of the Dispute

At a dinner, Victor asks whether the situation should be called a war. Michael answers that if it is not a war, he would like someone to explain what it is. Victor counters that the government describes it as a law-and-order issue. The exchange is more than a disagreement over vocabulary: the two descriptions imply different accounts of the violence and of the state’s role in it. Calling the conflict a policing matter can make criminal procedure seem sufficient; Michael argues that the policing itself is part of the problem.

Michael’s view is rooted in his work as a barrister. At Penny’s table, he objects to Diplock courts, where cases proceed without juries, saying that this is not what he had signed up for. In another discussion, he argues that Republican prisoners are treated unfairly and that the system would not be tolerated elsewhere in the United Kingdom or in another civilised country. Victor dismisses the prisoners as gunmen and bombers who believe they are being treated unfairly. Michael bristles, but does not answer immediately; instead, he drinks from his glass. The disagreement makes visible how a legal category can divide even those sharing a table: one speaker sees the prisoners principally as offenders, while the other challenges the fairness of the system judging them.

Policing as a Contested Account

Michael’s criticism is not limited to the courts. At the same dinner, he describes a film called Policeday, which presents police officers chasing sheep, giving directions, and conducting an interrogation staged as witty banter. He calls it propaganda intended to make the Royal Ulster Constabulary appear impartial. His complaint concerns not only police conduct but its public representation: a polished film can present an image of ordinary, even humorous policing while leaving the institution’s prejudice and coercion outside the frame.

Cushla contributes a smaller, local example. She recalls that police officers held a disco at her school as a form of community outreach. Asked why they went there, she suggests that the school was considered safe because it was not in an area thought to be a Republican stronghold. Michael pats her thigh beneath the table in approval. Her explanation connects the apparently ordinary school event to a geography of access: police could enter some places, while other areas were understood as inaccessible or politically charged. Victor observes that the police have a difficult job; Michael replies that their own prejudice makes it more difficult. The exchange refuses to make the police either a neutral service or an uncomplicated enemy, instead locating the dispute in the conditions under which they operate and the assumptions they carry.

Evidence, Procedure, and Visibility

The novel later gives material form to Michael’s concerns. Alone in his room, Cushla finds case papers concerning three young men: copies of statements they refused to sign, police photographs, and accounts of arrest and custody. The materials document abuse in detention. Their presence in Michael’s files connects an argument heard over dinner to the work of gathering and preserving evidence. The contrast is sharp: the official procedures and public image discussed at the table coexist with records that expose what those accounts may leave out. Cushla’s discovery is also a shift in her understanding of Michael’s professional world, from stacks of papers and names to testimony and images that make the costs of custody difficult to dismiss.

The later questioning of Cushla shows how official inquiry produces its own record. An interviewer asks whether she discussed her relationship with Michael with Tommy McGeown, then opens Tommy’s black notebook and asks whether she gave him her telephone number. Cushla says she did so that he could call if the family needed shopping. The question turns a practical act of help into a possible connection requiring investigation; the notebook becomes evidence through which the authorities examine her association with the family. The passage does not establish what the notebook proves, but it shows how a small personal detail can acquire a different meaning when placed inside an inquiry.

Trial, Violence, and the Limits of the Frame

Cushla reads a newspaper account of Tommy’s trial. It reports that he refused to recognise the court, offered no defence, and answered no questions; he was convicted on evidence described as forensic, circumstantial, and damning. The same spread discusses the danger faced by members of the judiciary after judges had been shot, notes that most people appearing on terror charges were under twenty, and condemns those who recruited teenagers. The newspaper assembles public danger, legal procedure, and the vulnerability of the young in a single account. Cushla, meanwhile, imagines Tommy’s earlier encounter with Michael: Michael had invited the boy in for tea while he worked on a path opposite the house. The trial’s evidence and the remembered hospitality do not resolve into a simple explanation of Tommy’s actions; they place the legal conclusion beside the human circumstances the proceeding cannot fully narrate.

After Michael is murdered, the Provisional Irish Republican Army claims responsibility and describes him as a willing agent of a corrupt judicial system. The claim assigns his killing a political rationale, but it does not settle the moral argument the novel has built around him. Michael had criticized the courts and police while practising within the legal system; his murder makes that contested position fatal without making the competing descriptions equivalent. The novel’s concern is not simply whether the conflict should be called war or law and order. It is how each frame organizes attention: whose actions are named as political, whose are treated as criminal, what evidence becomes credible, and what suffering remains absent from the public account.