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The amateur historian in Ireland is often little more than a propagandist masquerading as an expert, writes David Adams

Yet very occasionally they perform a valuable service. Such was the case with RTÉ's Hidden History - The Killings at Coolacrease(broadcast on October 23rd), about the brutal murder by the IRA of two young Protestant brothers, Richard (24) and Abraham Pearson (19), at their farm in Co Offaly in 1921. This meticulously researched and studiously even-handed documentary benefited enormously, if inadvertently, from the contributions of a couple of local historians determined to lend post-dated justification to what was clearly a sectarian, land-grabbing atrocity.