Four Killings: Territorial disputes and bloodshed on the rocky road to a new Ireland

RTÉ presenter and history buff Myles Dungan looks back at his family’s involvement in one of the most violent episodes in the War of Independence

A suspected member of Sinn Féin is searched at gunpoint by members of the Black and Tans, during the Irish War of Independence in 1920. Picture: Getty

HISTORY

Four Killings: Land Hunger, Murder and Family in the Irish Revolution

By Myles Dungan

Apollo, €18.99

Myles Dungan’s sober and intelligent history of his family’s role in the War of Independence began with a revelation. Looking online at his grand-uncle TP McKenna’s 1924 application for a military pension from the Irish Free State, he came across four chilling words: “Executed spy at Carlanstown.”

“The shock that travelled through my entire body,” the RTE broadcaster ...