‘Britain’s Greatest’ was our worst enemy when the chips were down

BBC viewers voted Winston Churchill as ‘Britain’s Greatest’. He is remembered as the man who saved them during the Second World War, but he was undoubtedly one of Ireland’s greatest scourges. As Minister for War in 1920 he was the politician most responsible for the Black and Tans.

He was the one who conceived the idea of forming the notorious Auxiliaries to serve as special police in Ireland during the War of Independence.

They perpetrated the infamous incident at Croke Park – on Bloody Sunday, November 21, 1920 – when they fired indiscriminately into a crowd of spectators at a football match, killing 15 totally innocent people, including one of the footballers on the field.