Defender of the Faith by Stuart Carolan, the writer and creator of RTE’s Love/Hate, is a thriller set on an Armagh farm in 1986. It tells the story of an IRA family that are falling apart under the immense strain put on its members when the IRA interrogator, JJ, visits. After a botched operation, suspicion reaches a tipping point in the family unit and the arrival of JJ serves to upset the balance as he has one simple task: to execute the mole in the group.
A Pandora’s box of confusion, cruelty and paranoia is unleashed upon the Armagh family as for JJ, everyone is to be considered a traitor and an accomplice. The father Joe, his son Thomas, and a long-serving farm hand, Barney, all fall under suspicion and the family’s isolated farm becomes the environment for an electrifying investigation into loyalty, friendship and love. Defender of the Faith is blackly comic and chillingly real, with an atmosphere taut with menace.
