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I understand where you're coming from but as an acute student of Irish history I hate the slapdash attitude to facts that exist to discussions of what actually happened.

I find that when confronted with some particular horror story I always ask "when?". You'd be amazed at how often I am confronted by some vague story handed down by someone's granny.

Even you fell for that, there was no organisation called the "Black and Tans", paramilitary or otherwise, but Irish people will confidently tell you how England's jails were swept out and sent to terrorise the innocent people of Ireland. This is simply false.

The Royal Irish Constabulary, a perfectly respectable police force, was under extreme pressure during the 1919-21 IRA campaign and needed to get new recruits. These recruits came from the vast numbers of ex soldiers in the UK at the time, they had to fulfil the same criteria as police recruits anywhere in the UK, a certain standard of education and most importantly a clean criminal record. More than a third of these recruits were Irish themselves. Due to the lack of police uniforms many of these recruits wore half military half police thus the 'black and tan' label.

By the end of the campaign there is no doubt that the previous excellent standards of police discipline in the RIC in some parts of the country broke down and brutal "reprisals" were carried out, these were widely condemned by the British press and members of the British establishment including Winston Churchill. But it must be borne in mind that the IRA carried out a far greater number of atrocities than the British, just like in the Troubles of 1970-97.

I'm sorry for the history lesson but this is just another example of hysterical myth making and shroud waving so beloved by Irish Nationalists.