Minogue rather liked the caustic sarcasm. This nickname for the Special Branch had little to do with the mythical ‘Sweet Branch’, the fount of turn-of-the-century irredentist poetry with the mists of the Celtic Revival swirling about it.

“Were you expecting a bust of some type, Mr. Fitzgerald?” Minogue probed.

“We police ourselves here, lads,” Fitzgerald replied with more cynicism than coyness this time.

Minogue did not take up the bait. He would be no match for Fitzgerald as he, Fitz, presumably knew every in and out of the Broadcasting Act. A section of this act forbade RTE from airing interviews with members of proscribed organizations. Successive Irish governments had consistently subscribed to the notion that what didn’t appear on television could not exist in the minds of television viewers.

On this issue, executives in RTE were uncertain how to react. They were partly flattered by the implication that television was such a powerful medium of communication; they also took it for granted that, unlike the US, their Irish fellow-citizens knew there was life outside television. Rather than have a Minister slap an order on the service over any particular item, therefore, RTE had undertaken to keep its censorship in-house.

Fitzgerald led the two policemen through the building and toward the current affairs workroom. His department consisted of a huge room held in by walls of glass. Minogue decided not to make a comment about glass houses. The room was sectioned off by cloth-covered room dividers and desks stood in cosy spaces created by the high squares of orange and blue. It was all very modern, very dynamic, Minogue believed.

Less than half the desks they passed were occupied. A cluster of people sat at and around one desk, smoking and talking in low tones. They fell silent and looked to the policemen as they passed. Typewriters clacked at a distance. A radio was playing reggae music. Posters extolled visits to Madrid and an exhibition of Escher drawings which had come and gone at a Dublin gallery six years previously.