Winston Churchill and his father, Randolph Churchill go down in Irish history as notorious for standing against Irish home rule and Irish independence. On the death of Winston Churchill Irish newspapers were unsympathetic towards his life and carried stories of his behaviour during the Irish War of Independence – 1919 to Dec 1921 - and his role in sending in the Auxiliaries and the Black and Tans.

Winston Churchill, Secretary of War, sent in the notorious 'Black and Tans' and an even more treacherous group known as the Auxiliaries [auxiliary to the Police] in 1920 in the middle of the Irish War of Independence. These groups were tasked with a shoot-to-kill-policy as outlined in the memo by Lt Colonel Smyth. They were recruited from newspaper advertisements in English newspapers.

Within a short time of their arrival in Ireland over 200 unarmed civilians, many of them women and children, were killed by these Crown forces. The carnage became worse. Whole towns were held under siege and burned: Limerick, Fermoy, Thurles, Lismore, experienced indiscriminate shootings. A large part of Cork City was burnt down and Balbriggan just outside of Dublin was subjected to a particularly savage attack. A factory was destroyed and 49 private homes, and four pubs were burned down.

1920 became known as 'the year of terror’, and the reference was to British Crown forces and it was largely laid at the door of Winston Churchill.

Further reading: Diarmaid Ferriter The Transformation of Ireland 1900- 2000

Out of curiosity, did anyone ask him to defend his point or elaborate?

Usually when I hear of Churchill being called a murderer, there is mention of a famine in India. Could someone expand on what this famine was?