Guilt

The nature of guilt is continually questioned and reconsidered throughout The Ghosts of Belfast. Gerry's interpretation of allotted guilt undergoes a significant change as he begins to understand the shared responsibility of the "smart" men who never actually "killed anybody" but who made "mugs" like himself do it instead (9). As his conception of guilt begins to widen in its scope, Fegan begins to see everyone who lived through the Troubles as naturally complicit. Even Father Coulter, who has an active conscious, becomes guilty for his tendency to give "forgiveness" and allow his confessants to "go out and [commit their crimes] again" (151).

No one is innocent in Fegan's world. Marie McKenna, who, by way of her education and emphasis on a bipartisan approach to politics, seems as far away removed from the criminal world that Fegan knows, is revealed to have had an affair and possibly a...