In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers.

But the man who often found, tortured and sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA

was himself an informer, a secret British army agent with the codename Stakeknife.

Who gets to play God? And why me? Why my family?

When lies are still being told to this day, who do you believe?

I wouldn't even know where to start, and I'm with the irony.

Steakknife.

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Hello, today I'm in one of the most talked about and perhaps least understood cities in the British Isles.

And even that's a

controversial subject here. I'm in Belfast. Literally translated, it means mouth of the sandbanks,

and it's a city built on the reclaimed muddy floodplain of the river lagoon, nestled between

three encroaching mountains, visible from nearly everywhere in the city.

It's also a city that's been a staple on the nightly news for the past 40 years and returned

to the headlines this summer with sectarian rioting continuing in the north and east of the city.

It's our latest literary landscape and I'm eager to find out how the split personality of Belfast has

influenced writers down the centuries. So I've headed for a pub, naturally, where I'm joined

by the author Glenn Patterson, who also lectures in creative writing at Queen's University.

He's been described as Northern Ireland's Prose Laureate, and in a series of novels,

including his Betty Trask winning debut, Burning laureate, and in a series of novels, including his

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