 Paudge Rodger Behan ( / <unk> <unk> <unk> / <unk> <unk> @-@ ər @-@ <unk> @-@ ən ; born January 1965 ) is an Irish actor and writer . The son of IRA Chief of Staff Cathal Goulding and Beatrice ffrench @-@ Salkeld , the widow of playwright Brendan Behan , Paudge Behan worked briefly as a journalist for a Dublin newspaper before turning to acting . After a series of minor film and television roles in the 1990s , he was handpicked by English novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford to appear as the male lead in a 1999 dramatisation of her book A Secret Affair ( 1996 ) . 
