The boy
An unnamed, poetic-voiced narrator who details the intimate ways he feels the IRA has hurt his life. Most of all, the boy develops an obsession with his uncle's death in an IRA hit (executed by the police, if the boy's memory serves).
The mother
This religious woman raised her son to believe that he should be superstitious about life, interpreting life's many twists and turns as ghost or demon hauntings. Then, when the mother becomes depressed and untethered, the son realizes that she might have a demon. Suddenly, he becomes free of her superstitious worldview. He also notices that she has guilt in her eyes when she looks at his father.
The father
An aloof figure whom the boy understands to be unhappy in their marriage. The boy wonders whether the mother might have done something to upset or betray his father, to explain his father's emotional aloofness.
Uncle Eddie
Uncle Eddie is a character who only appears in the narrative as the subject of the boy's curiosities. Having been killed by police who were executing the decision of the IRA, Eddie's death is mysterious at best. Allegedly, the hit was put on Eddie for informing about someone else, but actually, the boy decides that this is a false narrative, and that the real snitch got away to America.
