Connelly, RTÉ’s Europe Correspondent and a native of Derry, said he was prompted to explore his family’s background after a controversy blew up in January 2020 about plans to commemorate the RIC as part of the Centenary programme.

That proposed event was scrapped after a major backlash and political scientists have suggested that it had an impact on the general election which was held the following month.

The documentary, A Hidden History, traces Michael Connelly’s roots in a small east Galway parish in a typically poor, rural family.

After joining the RIC he was relocated to Kerry where he met his wife and was then transferred to Carrick on Suir.

He became part of the community and was commended, along with a colleague for saving a family from a burning building. Everything changed after the 1916 Rising.

“Within a very short period of time he and his colleagues went from being part of the fabric of small towns and suddenly they were outcast and many of them were killed,” Connelly told the Mick Clifford podcast.

“At one point there was an attempt on his (Michael Connelly’s) life. He was confronted in a shop in Carrick but somebody said you’re not going to shoot him in front of his son because my uncle Matt was with him,” Connelly says.

“So the gunman backed off and said I’m not going to kill you now but I’ll get you, Connolly’.” Soon after the new state was established in 1922, Michael Connolly left with his wife and six children and joined the RUC.

He was posted early on to a staunchly loyalist enclave in Larne where he often found there was prejudice against him because of his religion.

At one point, Connelly relates, his Kerry-born grandmother refused to leave her home to go down the town afraid that she would be targeted.

Tony Connelly is this week’s guest on the Mick Clifford Podcast.

A Hidden History airs on RTÉ 1 Television on Monday, June 12.