The Murderer and the Taoiseach by Harry McGee: Why the Malcolm Macarthur case remains as grotesque and bizarre as ever

The easy way to explain Malcolm Macarthur is that the double murderer was predisposed to violence by a traumatic, lonely and abusive upbringing. He was an only child with no cousins and his parents had a violent relationship before they split up. At 16, he was bitten on the hand by his father, leaving a gash that required five stitches. That scar joined the one on his head, where he had been kicked by one of his mother’s mares at the age of four.