Brendan O'Carroll's episode of Who Do You Think You Are? was in some ways more like a detective story than family history. Brendan (who is famous for being Mrs Brown in Mrs Brown's boys,) had one simple mission that consumed the entirety of the episode - who murdered Brendan's grandfather one night in the autumn of 1920?
The search led him through the murky world of the fight of the IRA for Irish independence from the UK, full of spies and assassins. Indeed, assassination seems to have been Peter O'Carroll's fate, an almost silent shot within minutes of opening the door of his shop. As Brendan says when trawling the Dublin newspapers of the period and coming across tragedy after tragedy, shooting after shooting, murder after murder: these were dangerous times.
The danger came not least from the handful of British units without conscience - teams of spies and hit-men, these were largely made up of seasoned officers from the British army. Many of these officers had served in World War One, perhaps embittered and hardened by their experiences - certainly, there seemed to be no qualms about killing.
A dark time indeed, a war, of which Peter O'Carroll was undoubtedly a victim. There were murders and executions on both sides, and it was only natural for Brendan to feel that justice had not been done - his grandfather's killer/s had never been arrested for their crime. Yet, in order for the country to move on after independence was achieved, a line had to be drawn in the sand; the settling of scores would unfortunately have done more harm than good and simply perpetuated the war; that meant that personal tragedies unfortunately had to remain unaddressed. A dark period indeed.
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