New history reveals bookies, bigamists, and Black and Tans

Man behind one of the world's best-known bookmakers opened the chain with compensation he received after being shot in Co Cork

Members of the Royal Irish Constabulary and Black and Tans prepare to abandon a police barracks in East Cork in 1920, during the height of the IRA campaign during the War of Independence.

What odds on this? The man behind one of the world’s best-known bookies opened the chain with compensation he received after being shot while serving as a Black and Tan in Co Cork.

In addition, the founder of the force that terrorised Ireland during the War of Independence was not an Englishman, but a man born in Fermoy, Co Cork.