"The revenge of Shane Bearnagh was on the mountain, but the fear of him spread far and wide. Some of the Englishmen, cowards, paid Shane Bearnagh with money and beef and bread, in the hope that he would leave them alone. He lived in the caves of the mountain, and close to the main coach road that ran between Dungannon and Omagh was where he was happiest. At the very summit of the mountain was a heap of rocks that is to this day called Shane Bearnagh's sentry box…

"His friends in Dungannon would light fires when the coaches left under cover of darkness from Dungannon to make the run to Omagh.

They thought the night would help them, but they were wrong. Shane could see down to Dungannon, and the fires that were lit for him, and he and his men would stop the coaches and take back from the Englishmen what had been stolen from the Irish people. The English feared him more than any fighter in all of the island. They built a barracks on the mountainside, near to the top, and garrisoned it with their soldiers, and the barracks and the soldiers were there only to chase and hunt Shane Bearnagh. They hunted him and they chased him, because he was the bravest free man in all Ireland…"

"Did they catch him, Ma?"

It was the story that had no ending.

She told him that it was time for them to go together to feed the stock cattle in the barn.

A whispered voice spoke into a dictaphone.

The machine fitted snugly into the gloved hand and was held against the lips. The other hand moved the two inch-long joy-sticks that controlled the zoom on the camera and the focus.