Cillefoyle Park by Hugh Vaughan is a historical novel about a socialist activist/bar man torn between the possibility of politics and the violence exploding on the streets of Derry at the height of The Troubles in the early 1970's. That's the treacherous dilemma that Dermot Lavery finds himself in when an innocent friendship with a neighbour — Harry, a schoolteacher leads them both into a precarious web of secrecy and intrigue with all sides of the endless conflict. Caught in a nightmare world of secret negotiations for a ceasefire with an MI5 agent, the IRA, and when a disloyal IRA man becomes a Supergrass, his life spins on the edge of clandestine friendships, an affair with a neighbour, meetings with the IRA and certain death at any wrong turn from any of the groups who may not like the secret meetings for negotiations. It's a constant struggle with his conscience and the challenge of simply staying alive. The Supergrass names Dermot as an IRA man, so the police and Loyalist hit squads are after him, a message comes supposedly from the IRA to the British Government saying the IRA are ready to surrender — Dermot is blamed. The husband of his lady friend is after him — a perfect storm so he needs to leave, and he does — to Australia. He returns for his father's funeral and doesn't regret not saving the world, the workers or Northern Ireland but regrets not saving a child hood friend from suicide.
