‘You’re the most useless wife a man ever had the misfortune to marry’ – Warts-and-all portrait of Irish revolutionary Dan Breen creates a backlash

Nazi lover and embittered husband is the subject of a new book

Dan Breen

Liam Collins

He fired the first shots of the War of Independence on this day over a century ago, yet even now, long dead, Dan Breen is still causing trouble.

A controversial book on the former freedom fighter and TD lays bares the “man behind the myth” who wanted to shoot Fine Gael deputy leader James Dillon, and left a letter to be read to his own wife after his death, which begins: “You, Brigid Malone, is the most useless wife a man ever had the misfortune to marry.”