War, passion and murder in TG4 drama-documentary

A new documentary being broadcast on TG4 next week, tells the story of a New Zealand man who was a member of the most despised band of killers ever to set foot on Irish soil and his relationship with a Coleraine woman that resulted in her tragic death.

Pairteach i  nDúnmharú – An Auxiliary to Murder is a courtroom drama-documentary that weaves a sensational murder trial with Ireland’s War of Independence as it reveals the story of Hori Morse and Hilda Emily Hunter, the final victim of the ‘Auxiliaries’.

Produced by award-winning Galway producer, Des Kilbane of DesK Productions, it will be broadcast on TG4 next Wednesday, December 15, at 9.30pm and will also be available on the TG4 Player.

Hori Morse was a member of the infamous H Division of the Auxiliaries that besieged Tralee during the War of Independence and the documentary gives the background to events in Kerry during the War of Independence through the eyes of one of its arch villains. The Auxiliaries were hated and feared, a ‘gentleman’s’ Black and Tans, who wreaked havoc in their short, murderous spell in Ireland. There were no court martials, no war crimes tribunals, no truth and reconciliation commissions, making them accountable for their deeds.

Morse was on leave when began a relationship with Hilda Hunter, who lived in Coleraine with her husband and three children. When he resigned from the RIC, they eloped to Australia. She left her children and husband in Ireland and went working on the sheep-shearing circuit.

However, in Australia things didn’t work out as planned and the ex-Auxiliary killed his lover with his service revolver.  Morse had used the same Smith and Wesson revolver to kill Hilda that he’d used against the IRA. And when he went on trial for her murder, the whole extraordinary story came tumbling out in an Adelaide courtroom.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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