Finn mourns the disappearance of her childhood environment. The Belfast she once cherished is no more, and she fondly reminisces about it in vivid detail. She remembers the candy shop where she bought a tin of barley sugar as a gift from her grandmother to her father. She recalls the tin's color and how it was wrapped. She also thinks back to her days playing in the park, the sights and sounds of the bacon shop where she waited for someone to help her cross the street, and the skipping song that named the streets of west Belfast.

To her, those streets were her entire world. As the police escort her past a block that once housed a baby clothes store and an undertaker, she reflects: “Everything from birth to death on that road. Once. But gone now—just stumps where the buildings used to be—stumps like tombstones.” The obliteration of the world she remembers partially explains why she feels so lost and disconnected from life. It symbolizes her longing to escape the complexities of the present.

Finn’s tactic of reciting street names to her interrogators instead of revealing names of others in the terrorist group serves both as a means to dodge their questions and as a way to preserve, in her mind at least, a familiar yet vanished world. The list of street names, of places quickly disappearing, is both a lament and a protest against the destruction of a close-knit community by the dual forces of civil conflict and modernization: “Redevelopment. Nothing more dramatic than that; the planners are our bombers now. There is no heart in the Falls these days.”

The narrative delves into the theme of loyalty and betrayal across multiple dimensions: personal, familial, and political. At the heart of the conflict lies Finn's affection for her unnamed English friend, juxtaposed against her allegiance to Irish nationalism. Despite ultimately siding with the latter, this decision leaves her troubled. Her turmoil is evident during her time in the park on the night she betrays him, where her stomach churns, and she admits to being in love. She is moved by his romantic expressions (something her boyfriend Jack likely never offered) and considers him her "last link with life." After departing the park, she attempts to clear her mind and shut out the inevitable events. Part of her motivation for betrayal—perhaps unacknowledged even to herself—may stem from irritation over his failure to contact her for three weeks. If so, it was her petty resentment, not her political convictions, that cost her friend's life.

Loyalty also manifests in her connection to family and tradition. Finn finds herself torn here as well. While she chooses to support a political cause aligned with her Catholic family heritage, she also seems eager to break free from that legacy. This internal conflict is illustrated in her dream about her grandmother, who grips her tightly despite Finn's attempts to escape. This suggests an unconscious rebellion not overtly visible elsewhere in the story. Otherwise, Finn appears devoted to her grandmother, maintaining the house as it was during her grandmother's life, complete with Catholic symbols. It was through her grandmother’s tales that Finn absorbed the Irish history she now seeks to influence.