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McFarlane’s cell was next to Bobby Sands’s, then officer commanding of the IRA in the prison. In March 1981, when Sands began his hunger strike, he gave his job to McFarlane. Asked why, Sands is said to have replied: “Because you will let me die.”

Last year Richard O’Rawe, another former prisoner, revealed that four days before the fifth of 10 hunger strikers died, the IRA was offered a deal by the British in which the “underlying substance” of their demands were conceded. In his book Blanketmen, O’Rawe suggests that the deal was rejected by the IRA leadership in order to ensure the victory for Owen Carron in the Fermanagh/South Tyrone by-election caused by Sands’s death. O’Rawe’s book caused a huge spat with McFarlane, who said no such deal had been offered.

McFarlane’s role in the hunger strike brought him into contact with Gerry Adams, who was in charge of communicating IRA Army Council decisions to the prisoners. Since then McFarlane has been unwaveringly loyal to the Sinn Fein leader.

Two years after the hunger strikes ended, with no concessions and no deals, McFarlane was still the officer commanding at the Maze as the prisoners staged a mass break-out. He used a food delivery van to sneak 38 men out past 40 prison officers and 28 alarm systems. Fifteen were caught in the vicinity of the prison, four were captured the following day, 19 got away, with three never being recaptured.

McFarlane was arrested in Holland alongside Gerry Kelly, now a North Belfast MLA. They successfully fought extradition for more than a year, but were then sent back to Northern Ireland to serve the remainder of their sentences.

Just a month before his arrest in 1998 by gardai, McFarlane had been pictured shaking hands with the Irish president, Mary McAleese, also from Ardoyne. His capture was criticised by Sinn Fein, who described it as “deeply unhelpful”.

The gardai are basing the Tidey charges on items recovered from the kidnap site, including a milk carton and a plastic container, on which fingerprints were discovered. Although the items went missing from garda headquarters during renovation work, the fingerprints had been photographed and a forensic analysis done.

While the eight-year legal wrangling over the Tidey case proceeded, McFarlane returned to “civilian” life in Ardoyne. He is married with three children, and has formed a band, Tuan, which is a regular on the republican entertainment circuit.

Sinn Fein describes him as a voluntary worker, and he has been a vocal supporter of the party’s political stance, appearing beside both Adams and Kelly at rallies and reiterating former prisoners’ support for the direction the party is taking.

Still, many found McFarlane’s contribution to the 2001 Sinn Fein ard fheis revisionist, if not downright hypocritical. He made a rousing speech denouncing sectarian violence, without mentioning he had done time for bombing a Protestant bar and machine-gunning the customers as they tried to escape.

Anthony McIntyre, a vocal critic of the Sinn Fein leadership, praises McFarlane despite disagreeing with his politics. “He doesn’t ostracise you the way other people in the party do,” McIntyre said. Despite this popularity in his own community, McFarlane has never sought election. More than Kelly or Martin McGuinness, he would be a hate figure for most unionists.

Sinn Fein says that even if he’s convicted of the Tidey kidnapping, McFarlane is covered under the terms of the Good Friday agreement and should be released within two years. But despite his loyalty to the party, McFarlane must regret Sinn Fein’s recent rejection of an “on the run” amnesty offered by the British and Irish governments. If enacted, it would have meant McFarlane getting a presidential pardon, courtesy of the woman with whom he so controversially shook hands, Mary McAleese.

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