Adrian Bestea was beaten to death, then stuffed in a suitcase, because his girlfriend claimed he was violent towards her. Michael Brady signed his own death warrant when he strangled his wife Julie to death. Denis Donaldson was shot dead in a remote Donegal cottage – because he had admitted to being a British “mole” within Sinn Fein. Charlotte and Linda Mulhall (the so-called “Scissors Sisters”) murdered and dismembered Farah Swaleh Noor – because he was a violent man who constantly abused their mother.
Ken Foxe looks at these and many other recent killings in Ireland, and concludes that the motives in all of these cases can be summed up in one word: REVENGE. Ireland is often called a nation of begrudgers – but what happens when a grudge is held by a violent or unstable character? What happens when it is left to fester in the mind of a psychopath? Or even when an otherwise ordinary person is pushed to the edge of sanity by abuse and violence? The results can often be bloody.
REVENGE pulls no punches in describing how this most ancient of motives has led to so many murders.
