During the next three years Don heard little about the ammunition except for the one occasion when the sergeant who had arrested him turned up at his house one evening, a couple of days after his release from custody, to offer him a deal: tell him all that he knew about George Hegarty and the money from the Northern Bank and the bullets would disappear. He left a card with a number he could be contacted on 24/7 should Don accept the offer but Don merely took it to his solicitor and reported what was said. Life then returned to normal for Don and he would publish four of my books while he worked on several others by different authors. I had travelled from Canada to help him finish the granny flat he had built for his mother by plumbing in a heating system but before she could at last retire to her beloved Cork she had sadly succumbed to cancer in the very last hour of November 2007. 

I had met Don’s parents on many occasions and always felt privileged to do so. Mr Blaney had died in 1992 and people of many nationalities and religions attended the packed church for his funeral. He had been the steward of the town’s Catholic Working Men’s club, which was ironic because he had no time for any sort of religious discrimination, and he always ensured people of all backgrounds were made welcome. If the issue of a visitor’s faith was raised he had even performed impromptu baptisms on them with a few drops of water and announced they were Catholics now before asking what they would like to drink. One of my favourite anecdotes about Don’s mother was how one day, as she was sweeping her living room floor, she heard a commotion outside. The Blaneys had been living in Low Hill for five years when a young black boy, the first black person they had seen on the estate, walked down the street one sunny afternoon and people had poured out of their houses to set about him. Mrs Blaney then ran across the road and waded into the attackers with her broom until the boy broke free and escaped. Don, around ten years old at the time, and his two younger brothers had stood open-mouthed on the doorstep as their mother returned to the house and carried on with her sweeping as if nothing that special had occurred. But for her three sons the lesson was clear and something they carried for the rest of their lives: standing by was not an option when an injustice was happening – and principles are for acting on and not just talking about.