Another of the unfortunate legacies — what a long, well-polished list that is — of our nation’s time as a colony is a visceral distaste for “informers”. That, however, did not prevent a great number of our countrymen or women being just that.

James ‘Whitey’ Bulger was a murderer and violent criminal but it was the long-accepted fact he was an FBI informant that he was most concerned with denying, writes Michael Clifford

A murderer told jurors of his days as a close associate of James “Whitey” Bulger, joining him in a double murder in which Bulger wore a wig and fake mustache and escaped in a car capable of sending out a smokescreen or oil slick to deter pursuers.

ELAINE Hyland left her home soon after 9am on December 12, 2006. She was accompanied by her two daughters, aged four and two. The older girl was being dropped to school.