This is true spies. The podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time.

Week by week, you'll hear the true stories behind the operations that have shaped the world we live in.

You'll meet the people who live life undercover. What do they know?

What are their skills?

And what would you do in their position?

I'm Rihanna Needs, and this is True Spies from Spyscape Studios. The Irish Sea stretches between the east coast of Ireland and the west coast of Britain.

Its deep waters tell an old story. An ancient tale of two countries,

full of raiders, traders, soldiers and spies, the promise of new life and the wrench of life

taken. But there's a chapter missing. And where the sea meets the eastern shores of Ireland,

until very recently indeed, you might have come across a man who could tell it firsthand.

In this rural part of the country, you'd surely have seen him coming. At the very least, you'd have heard his name around town, at least the one he used.

He was wearing cravats, and he was very disdainful, very rude to people by all accounts.

And he annoyed a lot of the neighbours.

Didn't a clue who he was after his return to Ireland,

but they didn't like him because they felt he was a bit condescending and a bit snobby.

In the years leading up to his death in 2021,

this strange aristocratic figure lived a comfortable, if secluded, life.

He lived out his final days then, in his mind, I think,

as some type of a gentleman of leisure with his hot toddies and his crubats and his fat

pension fund.

Reading his paper, taking the air, walking his dogs.

I suppose he had dogs just in case he was ever going to be attacked by Republicans or something

...