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New page: The '''Royal Irish Constabulary''' (RIC) was the main police force in Ireland under British rule in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Formerly the Irish Constabulary, it was ...
The '''Royal Irish Constabulary''' (RIC) was the main [[police]] force in [[Ireland]] under British rule in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Formerly the Irish Constabulary, it was granted its 'Royal' prefix following the [[Fenian Rising]] of 1867. The RIC carried out normal policing duties but also had a paramilitary role, carrying out duties that elsewhere might have been performed by troops; it was organised in a quasi-military fashion, being based in police barracks, and its members wore a military-style dark green uniform and were armed with rifles. It was not a sectarian force: most members were [[Catholic]], and when the RIC took over the duties of the disbanded [[Belfast]] and [[Londonderry]] police forces, its members were received with suspicion by the local [[Protestant]] populations. However, the force became increasingly unpopular for its role in enforcing rural ecvictions and other policies objected to by the nationalist population, and when the [[Irish War of Independence]] broke out - with the shooting of two policemen in 1919 - the force was in the front line. Policemen and police familes were subjected to a boycott enforced by the [[IRA]], several hundred isolated barracks were burned, and more than 400 police were killed. Many hundreds of policemen resigned, and the RIC had to be reinforced by recruiting British ex-servicemen for reserve units: the notorious Black and Tans ('Tans') and the Auxiliary Division ('Auxies'). At the conclusion of the war and the division of Ireland into the [[Irish Free State]] and [[Northern Ireland]], the RIC was dissolved and replaced by two forces: the [[Garda Siochana]] in the Free State (which also absorbed the hitherto independent Dublin Metropolitan Police), and the [[Royal Ulster Constabulary]] in Northern Ireland.
==Further Information==
http://www.psni.police.uk/index/pg_police_museum/pg_the_royal_irish_constabulary.htm
[[Category:Ireland]]
[[Category:Police]]
==Further Information==
http://www.psni.police.uk/index/pg_police_museum/pg_the_royal_irish_constabulary.htm
[[Category:Ireland]]
[[Category:Police]]