Although they were only a small proportion of British forces in Ireland, they were the toughest, wildest, & most feared. Sent by Lloyd George's Coalition Cabinet in March of 1920 to make the country "a hell for rebels to live in," they knew and cared nothing about Ireland. They murdered innocent civilians and looted all over the south and west of Ireland. So brutal was their behavior that the Irish named them after a famous pack of wild dogs in Limerick. By July of 1921 they had accomplished their mission so well that they united not only Irish but British public opinion against the government, undermined the coalition, and dealt the Liberal Party a blow from which it never recovered. Here is an account of an ugly and harrowing time in Anglo-Irish history--a time the English struggle to forget and the Irish can't help but remember.
