Book review: A brave dissection of terror

'An Accidental Villain' is a questionable title as Hugh Tudor’s racism, ruthlessness, and duplicity suggests there was nothing accidental about his terror career in Ireland

Canadian author, broadcaster, and journalist Linden Macintyre’s project looks into the motivations of Sir Hugh Tudor.

• An Accidental Villain: Sir Hugh Tudor, Churchill’s Enforcer in Revolutionary Ireland 
• Linden MacIntyre 
• Merrion Press, €16.99 

Linden MacIntyre’s decision to write a biography of Sir Hugh Tudor was brave and rewarding.

Brave because Tudor was, either naturally or professionally — or both — unknowable. 

He was an enigma wrapped in an uncertain psychosis, unaccustomed to expressing emotions other than the forcefulness that marked a successful early military career. 

He was 10 times mentioned in dispatches in the First World War — so when he arrived in Ireland to lead the Black and Tans, his reputation went before him. 

That he was asked to do this by his friend Winston Churchill added to the impression of a hard-nosed enforcer sent to a troublesome colony to quieten the restless, ungrateful natives.

MacIntyre’s project was rewarding because it dissects the motivations, conflicting loyalties, doubts, weaknesses, and principles of a military man.

It also shines a light into that dark corner where a military commander acts on secretive, tacit instructions from politicians, in this instance Churchill and Lloyd Geroge. 

They, always in a deniable way, encouraged Tudor to assure the Black and Tans that they could treat their opponents as they wished and not face sanction. 

Tudor did this enthusiastically, once infamously in Listowel. While encouraging Black-and-Tan mayhem, he routinely assured his concerned peers in Dublin Castle that he was committed to high standards. 

He plainly was not and because of that he had to seek refuge beyond the reach of Irish avengers after two years leading the Tans’ terror campaign.

Ironically, he did that first in Palestine where he led the police force trying to placate the Arab population while controlling nascent Jewish nationalism.

The author is a Canadian whose interest in Tudor was sparked by the soldier’s retirement and second career as a fish dealer in Newfoundland. 

This may account for his far from neutral vocabulary, where he describes men widely revered in this country as murderers, thieves, or terrorists. 

He is, however, at least as critical of the Black and Tans. 

That colouring is reflected in his declaration that Newfoundland was Britain’s oldest colony, a dubious honour that burdened this country for too long.

If MacIntyre’s language is a tad judgemental, his exposure of the bigotry, racism, and contempt for all things Irish that animated much of Britain’s officer class and Conservative politicians is unwavering. 

The three main characters — Tudor, Churchill, and George — all expressed appalling anti-Irish racism when they believed they were speaking in closed circles.

It seems too that a kind of cold justice has been delivered in that Tudor rests in a forgotten, hard-to-find grave in St John’s since his death in 1965.

All of the set pieces of our War of Independence are described here — Kilmichael, Crossbarry, Clonmult, and the assassination of Field Marshall Henry Wilson. 

They will be familiar to anyone with a passing interest in those times but MacIntyre’s perspective brings a challenging quality to An Accidental Villain — a questionable title as Tudor’s racism, ruthlessness, and duplicity suggests there was nothing accidental about his terror career in Ireland.

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