Policing in Ireland

Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC): Before the partition of Ireland in 1922, the whole of Ireland, with the exception of the City of Dublin, is policed by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). Created in 1836 from the amalgamation of two earlier organisations, the RIC is a paramilitary force, necessarily so in a country so fraught with problems as Ireland. The majority (over 70 per cent) of constables and sergeants are Catholics from the rural areas of Ireland, and during rebellion and uprising many are torn between their duty and their sympathy with the nationalist cause. The officers, however, are (unlike their counterparts in Great Britain) largely directly recruited, by open Civil Service examination, and commissioned from the traditional British and Irish officer classes. They tend to be upper and middle class Protestants, and have little sympathy with Irish nationalism. A large proportion of the officers are Freemasons (although the lower ranks are not permitted to join), many are university graduates (rare in British forces), and many are former army officers and continue to use their army ranks instead of their police ranks. In fact, half of the district inspectors are gazetted from the ranks, but as a head constable must have twenty years service before he can be promoted to 3rd class district inspector there is usually little chance of further promotion. Recruits and officer cadets both train at Phoenix Park Depot in Dublin.

Unlike police forces in the rest of the British Isles, deliberately organised and uniformed to avoid comparisons with the army, the RIC wear dark green, military-style uniforms (with flat caps, not traditional British police helmets), are generally armed with the ubiquitous .303 Lee Enfield rifle, are rigidly drilled and disciplined, and have a strict militaristic hierarchy. The force is commanded by an inspector-general, with his headquarters in Dublin Castle, who answers directly to the chief secretary. Brigadier-General Sir Joseph Byrne is inspector-general from 1916 to March 1921. There is also a deputy inspector-general and several assistant inspector-generals. Every county is under the command of a county inspector, who usually has at least twenty-five years service, and is sub-divided into districts under the command of district inspectors, who are ranked in three classes. The district inspector is assisted by a head constable, an officer approximately equivalent to sergeant-major in the army and promoted from the ranks, who is responsible for the organisation of day-to-day policing. He is responsible for a number of barracks (actually usually just rented houses), each usually housing a sergeant and four constables, but sometimes with more men. There are a total of around 11,000 men in 1,400-1,600 barracks (sources disagree) in the whole country.

A constable may not be posted to his home county, his wife's home county or any county in which either have relatives. He is posted to a different area on a regular basis, is required to live in the barracks (and cannot leave them at night) unless he is married, and may not marry until he has had at least seven years' service. A potential bride is vetted by the authorities and even after marriage the policeman and his family must live by a set of strict rules, including a ban on taking in lodgers, selling produce or the wife indulging in certain trades or employing apprentices. Police officers have no official rest days or annual leave and are not permitted to vote in elections. They are drilled every morning and formally inspected at least once a month. The job is not well-paid, but it is secure and in the past there has never been a shortage of recruits. Most RIC men have a great esprit de corps, pride in and loyalty to their force, and there is little corruption, although by 1920 there is considerable agitation for increased pay and improved conditions.

Despite all this, by the 1920s the force has lost much of its militaristic character, and has in the recent past been more often called upon to deal with ordinary policing matters than with suppression of rebellion. In this highly rural country the police are often the only government representatives in an isolated community, and carry out a range of duties not usually associated with policing, including collection of agricultural statistics, census taking and inspection of weights and measures. In fact, by the twentieth century relations between the RIC and the rural communities they serve are often surprisingly good. Although the force is still officially armed, constables rarely carry firearms in their day-to-day work and many are unfamiliar with their use, having not fired a rifle since their basic training. The increasing guerilla warfare after 1919 catches them completely unprepared, and even with the influx of auxiliaries from Britain they are ill-equipped to fight a war in Ireland.

Many RIC men resign after the Dáil Éireann (republican parliament) urges people to shun the police as agents of a foreign power. Barracks are barricaded with barbed wire and sandbags and the men within are forced to lead a lonely existence. Over five hundred men resign between May and July 1920 alone. In May 1920, Major-General Sir Henry Hugh Tudor is appointed police adviser to the viceroy and is given supreme command over both the RIC and the Dublin Metropolitan Police. On 17 June 1920, the men at Listowel RIC Barracks mutiny and refuse to hand over the barracks to the army. In October, the home secretary informs Parliament that the IRA has already murdered 117 policemen, wounded 185 and captured more than 600 police barracks. Obsolete weapons are replaced by newer models and barracks in remote areas are provided with Ford tourers and Crossley tenders (trucks which can hold ten men sitting back to back) to replace the bicycles previously used on patrol. The IRA steps up its campaign, humiliating those who deal with the police (shaving the heads of women seen with policemen is a favourite) and shooting suspected police informers.

In 1922, with the partition of Ireland, the RIC is disbanded and replaced by separate forces in north and south. This disbandment is not opposed by the force, many of the officers having already called for it. By the beginning of February 1922, the disbandment has begun and by the end of March the RIC are still present in only six counties of the Irish Free State, gathering in disbandment centres ready to hand over their arms, vehicles and equipment to the new government. They are then escorted in groups to railway stations and ferry ports by IRA men, who are usually hostile and sometimes even abduct and murder former policemen on their blacklists. Some are forcibly deported by the IRA and issued with ultimatums to leave their homes within 24 hours (as happens in Waterford). Many ex-RIC men flee to England to escape reprisals from the IRA, and by April sixty to seventy men a day are arriving at British ports. Many are re-housed by the government in the Chester area, but employment is difficult to find. On 4 April 1922, the Royal Irish Constabulary holds its final parade in Phoenix Park and on 30 August it is officially disbanded. 418 officers have lost their lives in the preceding four years, and one in twelve has been wounded.

Black and Tans: It soon becomes obvious that the RIC as it stands cannot combat the increasing troubles in Ireland, and in January 1920 the government starts to recruit large numbers of Great War veterans from the mainland to swell RIC ranks. The only requirement seems to be a basic level of literacy. The first recruits arrive in Ireland on 25 March 1920. There is no shortage of recruits, and by November 1921 around 9,500 men have joined. This sudden influx of men leads to a shortage of RIC uniforms, and the new recruits are issued with khaki army trousers and dark green RIC tunics, caps and belts. This mixture gives rise to their nickname, the Black and Tans (the name of a famous pack of foxhounds from Limerick), which sticks even after the men receive full RIC uniforms.

The new recruits receive hurried and sub-standard training, and are rapidly posted to RIC barracks, mostly in Dublin, Munster and West Connaught. They soon gain a reputation for brutality, as the RIC campaign is stepped up and police reprisals for terrorist acts are condoned by the government, a shoot-to-kill policy being adopted in many areas. This reputation may not be entirely justified, since full RIC uniforms are actually issued remarkably quickly and it becomes virtually impossible to tell apart Irish-born and British-born policemen, but the Black and Tans nevertheless come to symbolise British repression of the Irish. Over one-third of the Black and Tans die or leave the service before they are disbanded along with the rest of the RIC in 1922, an extremely high wasteage rate, and well over half receive government pensions. Members of the Black and Tans are paid the relatively good wage of £3 10s a week plus full board and lodging. The Black and Tans and the Auxies become known as 'Tudor's Toughs' after the police adviser.

The most notable example of Black and Tan brutality is 'Bloody Sunday', 21 November 1920, when they fire on spectators and players at a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary at Croke Park, Dublin, which they have invaded on the pretext of searching for illegal arms. Twelve people, including one player, are killed and sixty wounded. The carnage is in revenge for the murder of eleven British intelligence agents, members of the 'Cairo Gang', by the IRA. Other well-known atrocities include the burning of the village of Balbriggan, Co Dublin, and of part of the City of Cork. The Auxies are probably actually responsible for some or all of these. The old RIC men have mixed feelings about the new recruits, relieved to be receiving reinforcements but also often as frightened by these hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, brutal 'foreigners' as are the ordinary people of rural Ireland.

Auxiliary Division: The Auxiliary Division of the RIC, commonly known as the Auxies, is largely recruited from demobilised British Army officers, again in response to the escalation of violence. Some are highly decorated and two, George Onions and James Leach, wear the Victoria Cross. All members of the Auxiliary Division hold the rank of Temporary Cadet. Originally intended to provide officers for the Black and Tans and paid £pound;1 a day, a princely sum, they instead become a separate organisation. Recruitment begins in July 1920 and by November 1921 the division is 1,900 strong. The Auxies are nominally part of the RIC, but actually operate more or less independently in rural areas. Divided into companies (eventually fifteen of them), each about one hundred strong, heavily armed and highly mobile, they driving around the country in lorries. They operate in ten counties, mostly in the south and west, where terrorist activity is considered to be greatest. Hurriedly recruited, poorly trained and with an ill-defined role, they soon gain a reputation for drunkenness and brutality worse than that of the Black and Tans. They wear either RIC uniforms or army-style uniforms with glengarry caps. In February 1921, their commander, Brigadier-General Frank Crozier, himself a former officer of the Unionist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force, resigns in despair, utterly unable to discipline his men. They are often confused with the Black and Tans, and many atrocities laid at the door of the latter are in reality attributable to the Auxies. Disbanded along with the RIC in 1922, many former Auxies (and Black and Tans) join the Palestine Gendarmerie.

Ulster Special Constabulary (USC): The Black and Tans and Auxies only operate in the south. In the north of Ireland, the RIC is reinforced from 1 November 1920 by the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). In April 1920, Sir Basil Brooke, a Fermanagh landowner, organises Fermanagh Vigilance, effectively a reactivation of the Unionist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force, which has been dormant since 1914. Shortly afterwards, the Ulster Unionist Council officially revives the UVF, entrusting its organisation to Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfred Spender. The creation of the USC in November is little more than a formalisation of the UVF, since most UVF men join the USC, and the USC remains almost entirely Protestant.

The Ulster Special Constabulary is divided into three sections. 'A' Specials are aged between 21 and 45, full-time, uniformed and paid (£3 17/6 per week plus quarters), but cannot be posted outside their home divisions. 'B' Specials are part-time, usually on duty for one evening per week and serving under their own command structure, and unpaid, although they have a generous system of allowances (£5 every six months for general expenses, plus 2/6 meal allowance every duty). Initially, they are issued only with caps and armbands, although they later receive uniforms, but are armed when on duty. 'C' Specials are unpaid reservists, usually rather elderly and used for static guard duties near their homes. They are not uniformed, but are armed when necessary. The first two platoons of the USC deploy in Belfast in December 1920, and barely a month later the first special is killed at Cossmaglen, Co Armagh, while escorting a postman. By the end of 1920 there are nearly 3,500 'A' Specials, 16,000 'B' Specials and over 1,000 'C' Specials. It is the USC, particularly the 'B' Specials, specialising in counterinsurgency operations, that are most often responsible for countering IRA attacks in the north, but like their southern counterparts they gain a reputation for brutality and are viewed by most Catholics as Protestant vigilantes.

After 1922, the USC remains in existence to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary, although many of its members join the new force as regular police officers. However, the Specials, 24,000 strong by 1925, are expensive, and the British Government, which contributes most of Northern Ireland's policing budget, and Parliament are increasingly irritated by the amounts spent on the USC. Although pay has been reduced from 10s to 7s a day it is still a good wage, as much as can be earned by the most skilled manual worker. After the boundary of Northern Ireland is finally fixed in December 1925, the 'A' and 'C' Specials (numbering 3,500 and 199 men respectively) are disbanded, leaving only the 'B' Specials in existence. The full-time 'A' Specials receive two months pay as a redundancy allowance, which many complain is too low, leading to protests at some barracks.

One of the functions of the Ulster Special Constabulary is to provide the Governor's Guard. This detachment is responsible for the security of the Governor of Northern Ireland, the Duke of Abercorn, and is stationed at his official residence, Hillsborough Castle, Co Down, and his private residence, Baronscourt, Co Tyrone.

Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP): The City of Dublin is policed by its own force, the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), created in 1836. Unlike the paramilitary RIC, it is patterned on British forces, with similar organisation and uniforms (including helmets). It is also unarmed. Most of the recruits are from rural areas and senior officers are promoted from the ranks. It is, however, controlled by the Irish Government, not by the local authorities in Dublin. The force is and remains reasonably popular with Dubliners. G Division is the force's detective branch, and also investigates political crime. The DMP survives until April 1925, when it is absorbed into the Garda, the commissioner of the DMP becoming a second deputy commissioner of the Garda. Under the terms of the amalgamation, former officers of the DMP cannot be posted outside the Dublin area without their consent. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Walter Edgeworth Johnstone is commissioner from 1914 to 1923. The force had a strength of 1,200 in 1914. It is headquartered in Dublin Castle and its training depot is at Kevin Street Police Barracks, behind St Patrick's Cathedral, which continues in use as a Garda training centre until 1928. The force uses British-style ranks (constable, sergeant, station sergeant, inspector, superintendent, chief superintendent, assistant commissioner, commissioner).

Republican Police: Sinn Féin urges loyal Republicans to boycott and shun the Royal Irish Constabulary and creates its own unofficial force, the Republican Police, who perform normal police duties in Republican communities. At first these men are unorganised, rounding up offenders and parading them before the people going to Sunday mass to provoke their ostracization. Later organisation improves. Michael Staines, later first commissioner of the Civic Guard, commands the Republican Police.

Garda Síochána na hÉireann: Usually referred to as the Garda, Gardai (the plural, pronounced 'Gard-ee') or Guards, the Garda Síochána (Guardians of the Peace) is established on 21 February 1922 as the police force of the Irish Free State. Initially called the Civic Guard, it is formed as an armed paramilitary force very similar to the RIC it replaces, but there is great animosity between recruits, many of whom are former IRA men, and instructors, most of whom are former members of the RIC, culminating in the Kildare Mutiny in August 1922. The force is then reconstructed as a British-style unarmed civil police force, and it soon becomes widely accepted throughout the Free State. On 8 Aug 1923, it is officially renamed the Garda Síochána na hÉireann, although it is already commonly referred to as the Garda. The Garda is directly controlled by the Ministry of Home Affairs until 1924, then by the Ministry of Justice. It is about 2,000 strong in 1922, soon rising to about 4,000.

Originally headquartered in the Royal Dublin Society building in Ballsbridge, the force moves to Kildare, to a warehouse off Mary Street, Dublin, and finally takes over Dublin Castle in succession to the Royal Irish Constabulary, establishing its headquarters at Ship Street Barracks at the rear. In 1923, headquarters move again, to the Phoenix Park Depot.

Ranks are similar to British police ranks (guard, sergeant, station sergeant, inspector, superintendent, chief superintendent, assistant commissioner, deputy commissioner, commissioner). The first commissioner is Michael Staines, succeeded in September 1923 by General Eoin O'Duffy, who remains commissioner until 1933. Recruits are required to be at least 5' 9" tall, aged between 19 and 27, and to pass exams in reading, spelling and arithmetic. Uniforms are blue British police-style, not the green paramilitary style of the RIC.

In 1925 the Special Branch is established to deal with political crimes, unrest and subversion. Unlike most gardai, Special Branch men, who operate in plain clothes, are armed and most are directly recruited and have not served as uniformed officers. It rapidly gains a reputation for harshness, although nowhere near as serious as many 'secret police' organisations around the world.

The Garda's official organ is Iris An Garda, later renamed Guth An Garda. In December 1925 this is replaced by The Garda Review.

Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC): In the north, 2,000 RIC men remain on duty until the RUC is officially established on 1 June 1922 under the Northern Ireland Constabulary Act to police Northern Ireland. The force is effectively a direct successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary, adopting similar dark green uniforms and paramilitary character. Forty per cent of its officers are former members of the RIC and 49 per cent are former members of the Ulster Special Constabulary. It is intended that one-third of its members should be Catholic, but this is never to be. The force is 21 per cent Catholic in 1923, falling to 17 per cent by 1927, largely due to recruitment policies which encourage Protestants to join. Men are especially encouraged to transfer from the almost wholly Protestant Specials to the regular force. The force is consequently unpopular amongst Catholics, who see it as an organ of the Protestant unionist factions. However, Catholics are disproportionately represented in the higher ranks, and around 25 per cent of the inspectorate is Catholic throughout the decade. The first year of the RUC's existence sees considerable violence, but by the beginning of 1923 the situation has calmed and Northern Ireland becomes essentially peaceful. Even the General Strike of 1926 does not affect Northern Ireland, although the Royal Navy deploys a destroyer in Belfast Lough just in case.

RUC headquarters are at Atlantic Buildings, Waring Street, in central Belfast. The inspector-general is to be appointed by the Governor of Northern Ireland and is responsible to the minister of home affairs. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Charles Wickham, a Harrow-educated Yorkshireman and veteran of the Boer and Great Wars, commander of the Ulster Special Constabulary since its inception, becomes the first inspector-general of the new force. He is initially unpopular, since he is an Englishman with no connection to Ulster and is believed to favour other Englishmen. J F Gelston is appointed deputy inspector-general. Irish-born Major-General Arthur Solly-Flood is appointed as military adviser to the Northern Ireland Government in April 1922, co-ordinating both the RUC and the USC, but is removed at the end of the year, since the Unionist leaders feel threatened by him. The RUC continues to recruit its senior officers directly and train them as cadets as the RIC has done. It begins its life with an established complement of 3,000 men, but initially has recruitment problems and four months after its formation is only 1,000 strong. By the beginning of 1925, its strength has risen to 2,990, including eight county inspectors and 38 district inspectors. Many police stations will retain RIC crests until the late 1930s.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is small. There is a Fingerprint Branch from the force's beginnings and in 1929 a constable is appointed as a full-time police photographer to photograph fingerprints (which has been done unofficially since 1923) and crime scenes. There is an Intelligence Branch which, among other things, keeps an eye on the Irish Free State and particularly on its armed forces.

No women will serve in the RUC until the 1940s. RUC officers are permitted to be members of Orange Order lodges, but may not attend meetings in uniform and may not let membership interfere with their duties. The Sir Robert Peel Memorial Loyal Orange Lodge, exclusively for RUC men, is formed in January 1923. Unlike the RIC, RUC men are entitled to vote and may become Freemasons. They are, however, to refrain from making any overtly political or sectarian statements.

Bibliography
Chris Ryder, The RUC, 1922-1997: A Force Under Fire. Mandarin: London, 1997.