Warning: This article contains spoilers for season two of The Traitors Ireland.

The Traitors Ireland finalists pictured with host Siobhán McSweeney. RTÉ RTÉ

THE FAITHFULS FINALLY did it.

After weeks of suspicion, accusations and some spectacularly misplaced trust, Anna and Diego walked away as the winners of The Traitors Ireland, having successfully banished the last two traitors standing.

Carla was the first to go in the finale, before Pauric’s hopes of taking the prize money came to an end at the fire pit, leaving the two faithfuls to celebrate an unlikely victory.

But speaking to reporters after the finale, the final four revealed that there was plenty going on behind the scenes, from a secret alliance that helped deliver the win to the personal plans that the winners have for the money.

For Anna, simply reaching the final had been a surprise.

“It’s something that I never envisioned,” she said. “If I’m honest, I didn’t think I was going to get past the first week, so the fact that I was standing at the fire pit was mind-blowing.”

She and Diego had appeared to be at odds for much of the series, but Anna revealed that the pair quietly joined forces as the numbers dwindled.

“We weren’t even frenemies, to be honest. We just didn’t interact as such,” she explained.

“So, when the numbers got smaller, we had no choice but to interact. So we had secret conversations without Carla and Pauric knowing, as much as we could, and formed a secret alliance.”

“So much was going on in the background,” she added.

But we played it very, very, very low-key.

Diego said his suspicions about Pauric crystallised when Pete was banished and revealed himself to be a faithful.

“I straight away went, ‘It’s Pauric,’” Diego said.

The difficulty, of course, was that the remaining four players were split evenly between two faithfuls and two traitors.

Anna said Pauric’s reaction to the departure of Ian helped confirm her own suspicions, while Diego admitted that the endgame felt like a gamble.

Their gamble paid off, and Anna now has plans for the prize money that extend well beyond the castle.

Anna (right) pictured with Gráinne, Donal and Kayleigh.

Asked what she intended to do with her winnings, she revealed: “For myself and my partner, a lot of it would be put away for when we’re ready for IVF.”

The couple are also hoping to go ring shopping in the coming months, and are trying to buy a house before starting a family.

“So once that’s all sorted and settled, then we’re looking to having kids,” she said.

For Diego, the victory also meant proving his husband Denis, a fellow contestant on the show, wrong.

Denis had predicted that Diego would make it far, but that his trusting nature would ultimately cost him the win.

He was like, ‘I think you’re going to get far, but you’re not going to win because you trust people’.

He said Denis expected him to reach the end only for the traitors to turn on him.

“Which was what Pauric tried!” he joked.

Diego and Denis. RTÉ RTÉ

Diego, who moved to Ireland 15 years ago, also reflected on learning English while working in a nursing home after arriving in the country.

He said he learned both the language and Irish history from the older people he cared for and their stories.

As for what comes next, a honeymoon could be on the cards, with Diego suggesting that he and Denis might head to one of the Pacific islands.

For the two losing finalists, meanwhile, there was remarkably little bitterness.

Carla admitted she had spent much of the series expecting to be sent home.

“I genuinely thought I was gone like six episodes ago,” she said.

She credited the relationships she had built with helping her survive, but suggested that being underestimated had been just as useful.

“Every time I spoke at a table, I was interrupted,” Carla said. “They didn’t really care about what I had to say.”

As a faithful, that would have been really annoying, but as a traitor, it worked for me.

She added: “The faithfuls helped me get away with it.”

By the time she reached the final round table, Carla said she had already accepted that her run was coming to an end. Rather than feeling devastated when Anna accused her of being a traitor, she found herself struggling to argue back.

Carla pictured with Pete. RTÉ RTÉ

“I had nothing to say, other than, ‘Facts, actually! You’re dead right!’”

She insisted she was delighted simply to have made it so far.

“I genuinely don’t know what I was doing sitting in it,” Carla said. “I was just so happy to be there. I felt like I was at an all-inclusive. Everything was fabulous.”

Pauric was similarly philosophical about his defeat, although his explanation was rather different.

A self-described superfan, he said he and his girlfriend had watched every season of The Traitors together, and his ambition had always been to wear the traitor’s cloak himself.

Winning for me was when Carla asked me to be a traitor.

“That genuinely was. And if I had went on the first night after being recruited, second night, whatever, like that was me winning. I got to put on the cloak.”

The prize money would have been “unbelievable”, he admitted, but the experience was “priceless”.

“If I was a faithful and got to the final and got put out last, I would have been raging,” he said.

Carla and Pauric. RTÉ RTÉ

“But because I had achieved what I went in there to achieve, I wanted to be a traitor, and I wanted to show that I can be a good traitor.”

And despite spending the closing stages trying to outmanoeuvre Diego, Pauric said there were no hard feelings.

“If Diego ends up hoodwinking me, fair fucks to him,” he recalled saying during the game.

Now that the roles have been reversed and Diego has emerged victorious, Pauric said the friendship remains intact.

“I couldn’t be happier for the fella.”