Ghosts of a Family: Ireland's Most Infamous Unsolved Murder, the Outbreak of the Civil War and the Origins of the Modern Troubles

At 1.20 a.m. on 24 March 1922, five men, four dressed in British police uniforms, broke into the North Belfast house of Owen McMahon, a well-known Catholic publican. They fatally shot McMahon, four of his sons and Eddie McKinney, an employee of the family. Nobody was ever charged for these ruthless and cold-blooded murders.

In retaliation for these and other Belfast murders, the IRA assassinated the former head of the British Army, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, and a subsequent British ult...