The armed Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) was Ireland's major police force for most of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police controlled the capital, and the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police forces, later had special divisions within the RIC.[1] About seventy-five percent of the RIC were Roman Catholic and about twenty-five percent were of various Protestant denominations, in line with Irish demographics. The RIC's successful system of policing influenced the Canadian North-West Mounted Police, the Victoria Police force in Australia, and the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary in Newfoundland.[2] In consequence of partition, the RIC was disbanded in 1922 and replaced by the Garda Síochána south of the new border, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary to its north.
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The first organised police forces in Ireland came about through the Peace Preservation Act in 1814 for which Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850) was largely responsible[3] (the colloquial name "Peeler" derives from his surname),[4] and the Irish Constabulary Act in 1822 formed the provincial constabularies.[1] The 1822 Act established a force in each province[1] with chief constables and inspectors general under the control of the UK civil administration for Ireland at Dublin Castle. By 1841 this force numbered over 8,600 men. The original force had been reorganised under The Act of 1836, and the first constabulary code of regulations was published in 1837. The discipline was tough and the pay was poor. The police faced continual civil unrest among the Irish rural poor, and was involved in many bloody confrontations during the period of the Tithe War. Other deployments were against organisations like the Ribbonmen, which attacked landlords and their property and stock.
The new constabulary first demonstrated its efficiency against civil agitation and Irish separatism during the Young Ireland campaign led by William Smith O'Brien in 1848. This was followed by a period of relative calm. The advent of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, founded in 1858, brought a plan for an armed uprising. Direct action began with the Fenian Rising of 1867. Fenians attacked on the more isolated police barracks and smaller stations. This rebellion was put down with ruthless efficiency. The police had infiltrated the Fenians with local informers. The loyalty of the Irish Constabulary during the outbreak was rewarded by Queen Victoria who granted the force the prefix 'Royal' in 1867[1] and the right to use the insignia of the Most Illustrious Order of St Patrick in their motif. The RIC presided over a marked decline in general crime around the country. The unstable rural unrest of the early nineteenth century characterised by secret organizations and unlawful armed assembly was effectively controlled. Policing generally became a routine of controlling misdemeanours such as moonshine distilling, public drunkenness, minor theft, and wilful property crimes. A Land War broke out in the 1879-82 Depression period causing some general unrest. In Belfast, with its industrial boom, the working population mushroomed, growing fivefold in fifty years. A lot of this was Catholic migration and there were serious sectarian riots in 1857, 1864, 1872 and 1886. As a result the small Belfast Town Police civic force was disbanded and responsibility for policing passed to the RIC.[1]
From the 1850s the RIC performed a range of civil and local government duties together with their policing, integrating the constables with their local communities. By 1901 there were around 1,600 barracks and some 11,000 constables. The majority of constables in rural areas were drawn from the same social class, religion and general background as their neighbours. Strict measures were taken, however, to maintain an arms length relationship between police and public. A recruit was not permitted to serve in his home county or in the home county of his wife.[5]
The task of enforcement of tens of thousands of eviction orders in rural Ireland caused the RIC widespread distrust among the poor Catholic population during the mid-nineteenth century. In the relative calm of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, the RIC won "grudging respect" from the population it policed.[1] It was no less popular at home than any other police force.
The military ethos of the RIC, with its army terminology (the barracks, the carbines, and the emphasis on army style drill and smartness in dress) distinguished the force from civic police forces in the rest of the UK. The RIC wore a distinctive dark green uniform with black buttons and insignia, derived in style from the Rifle Brigade of the British Armed Forces.
The rank structure was paramilitary in nature, similar to that of the British Army of the period:
During the 1907 Belfast Dock strike which was called by trade union leader Jim Larkin, the RIC mutinied after Constable William Barrett was suspended for his refusal to escort a traction engine driven by a blackleg carter. About 70% of the police force in Belfast declared their support of the strikers and were encouraged by Larkin to carry out their own strike for higher wages and a better pension. It never came to fruition, however, as the dissident policemen were transferred out of Belfast four days before the strike was to begin. Barrett and six other constables were dismissed and extra British Army troops were deployed to Belfast. The dock strike ended on 28 August 1907.
The RIC's existence was however increasingly troubled by the rise of the Home Rule campaign in the early twentieth century period prior to World War I. Sir Neville Chamberlain was appointed Inspector-General in 1900. His years in the RIC coincided with the rise of a number of political, cultural and sporting organizations with the common aim of asserting Ireland's separateness from England.[7] The potential success of the third Home Rule Bill in 1912 introduced serious tensions: opponents of the Bill organised the Ulster Volunteer Force in January 1913 while supporters formed the Irish Volunteers in response. These two groups had over 250,000 members, organized as effective private armies. In reports to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Augustine Birrell, and the Under-Secretary, Sir Matthew Nathan, Chamberlain warned that the Irish Volunteers were preparing to stage an insurrection and proclaim Irish independence.[8] However, in April 1916 when Nathan showed him a letter from the army commander in the south of Ireland telling of an expected landing of arms on the southwest coast and a rising planned for Easter, they were both 'doubtful whether there was any foundation for the rumour'.[9] The Easter Rising began on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916 and lasted for six days, ending only when much of O'Connell Street had been destroyed by artillery fire. Although the Royal Commission on the 1916 Rebellion cleared the RIC of any blame for the Rising, Chamberlain had already resigned his post, along with Birrell and Nathan.
The Sinn Féin triumph in the general election of 1918 (the coupon election), winning 73 out of the 105 Irish seats, was followed by the Sinn Féin members' decision to convene themselves as the First Dáil, a new parliament. This body first met at the Mansion House, Dublin, on 21 January 1919, and announced a unilateral declaration of independence. This created a dramatically new political reality in Ireland.
On the day the new parliament first met, two RIC policemen, Constables Patrick MacDonnell and James O'Connell, were killed at Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary, by an IRA raiding party, while on duty guarding dynamite in transit to the local mines. This event marked the beginning of the Irish War of Independence.[10] The Irish Republican Army under the leadership of Michael Collins began systematic attacks on British government forces. While the British Army controlled the cities of Ireland, the RIC bore the brunt of such assaults in the provinces. The RIC were especially targeted because of their intelligence value to the British administration.
From the autumn of 1919 onwards, the RIC was forced to abandon its barracks in isolated areas. A national personal boycott of members of the force was declared by the IRA. The Dáil Courts and alternative legal enforcement units were set up by republicans. RIC members were threatened, and many were assassinated. Many members of the force resigned or began co-operating with the IRA. In October 1920, RIC wages were increased to compensate for increased hardship and cost of living increases. In rural areas, many small shopkeepers refused to serve the RIC, forcing them to obtain their food and other necessities miles away.
By October 1920, according to UK government sources, 117 RIC members had been killed and 185 wounded. Over a three month period during the same year, 600 RIC men resigned from the force of 9,500. In the first quarter of 1920, 500 police barracks and huts in outlying areas were evacuated. The IRA had destroyed over 400 of these by the end of June to prevent their subsequent reuse.
The consequence of this was the removal of RIC authority in many outlying areas. This allowed the IRA to assert political control over these areas. Large houses were burned, often to punish their owners for allowing them to be used for policing or military purposes or as revenge for the government-backed burning of republican homes. Much of the country's rich architectural heritage was destroyed.
To reinforce the much reduced and demoralised police the United Kingdom government recruited returned World War I veterans from English and Scottish cities. They were sent to Ireland in 1920, to form a police reserve unit which became known as the "Black and Tans" and the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
Paddy O'Shea, the son of a regular RIC sergeant, described these reinforcements as being "both a plague and a Godsend. They brought help but frightened even those they had come to help". Some regular RIC men resigned in protest at the often brutal and undisciplined behaviour of the new recruits.
Some RIC officers co-operated with the IRA, either out of political conviction, fear for their lives and welfare, or a combination of both. A raid on an RIC barracks in Cookstown, County Tyrone, in June 1920, was carried out with the help of sympathetic RIC men. The barracks in Schull, County Cork, was captured with similar inside aid. The IRA even had spies within the upper echelon at Dublin Castle.
In December 1920, the Government of Ireland Act was proclaimed amid the fighting. The Parliament of Northern Ireland convened. After the Anglo-Irish Treaty was approved by Dáil Éireann, the Irish Free State was formed, from which the northeast immediately removed itself, and Northern Ireland remained in the UK. The Irish Free State became an independent Dominion within the Empire.
In January 1922 the British and Irish delegations agreed to disband the RIC. Phased disbandments began within a few weeks with RIC personnel both regular and auxiliary being withdrawn to six centres in southern Ireland. On 2 April 1922 the force formally ceased to exist, although the actual process was not completed until August that year.[11] The RIC was replaced by the Garda Síochána in the Irish Free State and by the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland.
Many RIC men went north to join the new RUC. This initially resulted in an RUC force that was over forty percent Roman Catholic at its inception.
Some RIC men joined the Garda Síochána. Many of these men had assisted IRA operations in various ways. Some retired and the Irish Free State paid their pensions as provided for in the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty agreement. Others, still faced with threats of violent reprisals, emigrated with their families to Great Britain or other parts of the Empire, most often to police forces in Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. A number of these men joined the Palestine Gendarmerie, which was recruiting in the UK at this time.
The celebrated stage and film actor Stanley Holloway joined the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1920, but left a year later shortly before its disbandment in 1922 in the midst of the Anglo-Irish War.[12]
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