Well the British were as you put it the baddies. Study some history.

They have done the "looking back over the generations" when they found Boris was descended from George 2nd and Alexander Armstrong was descended from King John.

The episodes focussing on just one person can be more interesting, if the story holds the attention.
Bruce Forsyth's Grandfather who vanished to America and had a family there, Kim Cattrall with her Grandfather who was a bigamist - similarly Vic Reeves finding his mother's long lost Aunt who was younger than her.

Both sides fought very dirty for certain (though some of the British acts of terror were inexcusable such as the burning of the city of Cork in 1920 when they deliberately set fire to hundreds of houses and businesses, as well as Cork City Hall and the Carnegie Library, all of which were destroyed).

Was pretty incredible that could get to a name for the killer but was never going to get a balanced view. In order to be shot the family more than likely did some bad deeds but nothing of this came out in the episode.

Tedious. This series has been the worst ever. Are they cutting costs focusing on just one ancestor?

The title needs to be changed to | Know Who I Am So I'll Bore You With The Details.

Well the show actually stated that Brendan's grandfather's two sons were in the IRA and he was killed for refusing to hand them over or reveal their whereabouts.

This episode has definitely divided opinions.

What "bad deeds" do you suspect they were "more than likely" engaged in?

It was stated clearly and repeatedly that two of Peter O'Carroll's sons were Republican activists, fighting for Irish independence.

Their father was murdered because he refused to betray his sons.

More of 'the PC BBC, Irish making the English look bad whaaaa' we've heard before.
Change in format meant that I soon lost concentration, I've found out what happened now (in the broad strokes) from this thread.

Yes..I think it was pretty well balanced. Of course O'Carroll was upset by the findings and the fact the 'alleged' killer went back to his normal life
Think the story was well told

Most interesting programme tonight. Glad O'Carrolls grandpa was cleared.

He expressed indignation about the Auxiliary Units being able to kill people in cold blood without mentioning that his father's brothers, as IRA men, could quite likely have been doing the same.

With my vague knowledge of Irish history I seem to remember that the IRA also did quite a bit of burning down. Isn't that why most of the Irish censuses were lost?

There was a lot of supposition in the identification of the killer, mostly dependent on IRA evidence which I would never trust.

What we would now call terrorists. IRA men did not go around doing good things, they murdered people.

Freedom fighters

Though the story was interesting this didn't feel like an episode of WDYTYA at all.

They did indeed, they burnt the Custom House building in Dublin down and most of Ireland's archive and censuses were lost (it was seen as an attack on British administration in Ireland : interestingly Michael Collins was opposed to the attack but was overruled by De Valera).

The burning of Cork city centre by British forces was just plain malicious though. It was done in revenge for IRA guerilla attacks but many hundreds of houses and businesses were set on fire and firemen were prevented from tackling the blazes (and does give an indication that British forces regarded the Irish people as their enemies at that time, not just the IRA).

The IRA of 1919-21 was a large guerilla army (numbering about 15,000 active members) engaged in battle with British forces in the cities and throughout the countryside. Many of it's members became soldiers in the Irish Army after independence (as did plenty of Irishmen who had served in the British Army in WW1).

I agree. It was was fairly interesting, but nothing like the programme used to be.
The focus seems to be getting even more narrow. It used to cover several generations, then more recently started focussing on the life of one particular family member. But tonight was basically about a single event, the murder of his grandfather.

The British were very much the "baddies" in Ireland at this time. Your ignorance is outstanding. Open a history book.

Eeer the British were ruling land that isn't Britain. Of course we were the bad guys.

But the programme provided evidence the IRA killed people 'civilians' without trial that until last night I didn't know about the real origin of the phrase "Bloody Sunday" when the IRA assassinated 14 people in one evening.

Come forward to the seventies and you have certain people pretending to be politicians while concealing their guns and bombs. And let's not forget the disappeared.

As stated in the programme innocent people were intimidated by the republicans their lives were threatened if they dared to speak the truth so the baddies weren't just on one side.

Last night's programme became a murder mystery and I felt it glossed over what drew the grandfather to the attention of the security forces.

What really annoyed me was those glasses Brendan was wearing going up & down on his head, round the neck, on his forehead and back again.

I never suggested they weren't but the programme conveniently overlooked (deliberately?) that the terrorist IRA were equally bad. Throughout the programme the British were referred to as the Occupying Force, they were not, Ireland was British. Let's not revise history for our own convenience.