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The British invasion of Ireland involved, naturally, control and reform of the legal system, replacing the Irish Brehon system with its feudal legal system. As formalised watch systems developed in England, they were replicated in Ireland. In time, Ireland became a site of experiment for structured policing as concerns and objections were raised in Westminster to proposals for England. The result was the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), a force which held an awkward position in Irish society and whose demise was inevitable following the bitter War of Independence. From its ashes emerged an Garda SĂochĂĄna. A central argument of this book is that modern policing in Ireland was fundamentally shaped by pre-independent policing in two conflicting ways. On the one hand a desire existed in the 1920s to differentiate policing in independent Ireland from the RIC and colonial policing that had been used politically to control and suppress. On the other hand, when the country achieved independence, time constraints and a lack of alternative experience led to the retention of many of the core features of colonial policing. Therefore, twentieth-century policing was defined by efforts to be ideologically different but practically similar to the RIC of the nineteenth century. Appreciating that legacy and why it developed as it did is, therefore, essential to our understanding of modern policing, as much as an understanding of the colonial context underpins an understanding of the desire for change in the 1920s.
This chapter explores what colonial policing meant in Ireland. What such a study reveals is a policing experiment in a society where the predominant concern is order maintenance and suppression of nationalism rather than law enforcement and crime control. The chapter will trace the erosion of an indigenous justice system and the imposition and consolidation of British, structured, professional policing. But more than this, the chapter will examine that experience of policing to argue that policing in Ireland is historically highly centralised and politically directed, a theme which continues through independence. Simultaneously, the chapter will consider how difficult and trying policing was in Ireland in this period as the force lurched from social crisis to social crisis, performing functions more akin to an administrative body than a crime control organisation. The final decades of the force, the descent into a policing crisis in the War of Independence, will be scrutinised to contextualise the public understanding of policing at the time independence was achieved in 1922. What emerges is that the colonial nature of the state and its police force are essential to that context, and that they shaped policing in independent Ireland irrevocably both in terms of the structures and nature of policing and public perceptions.
Early policing in Ireland
The eighteenth century was a watershed in Europe in terms of policing and social control. It brought the first attempts to construct organised police forces but this was not the first experience of policing in Ireland. For centuries Brehon Law (Kelly 1988) provided a system whereby brehons, or judges, investigated crimes and imposed punishments, usually fines. Laws developed through custom over time and were passed down orally until the seventh century, when they were first written down. Brehon Law has been considered progressive law, with an emphasis on restitution rather than punishment. A thorough and developed body of law, it dealt with criminal law, family law, personal injury and contract law, among other areas (Ginnell 1917). It permitted divorce, espoused gender equality and was not bound by the then powerful Canon law. Neither courts nor police were required, such was the respect for this law, as communities and kinships enforced decisions. In essence it was a self-policing system. From the twelfth century the English attempted to supplant Brehon Law but it was not for another five or six centuries that it could be said that English law prevailed. The development of policing in Ireland, in terms of persons being delegated policing functions, was inextricably linked to the spread of the English legal system throughout Ireland.
For centuries following the Anglo-Norman invasion the spread of English law was limited to Dublin, or the Pale as it was known. From the fourteenth century, this system involved justices of the peace, petty constables and night watchmen. Enforcement by the community was central, as in the Brehon system, with Boyle describing âcollective involvementâ as âthe lynchpin of social organisationâ (1972: 118). Hue and cry, whereby community members would shout to alert those responsible that a crime had occurred, as well as collective fines, emerged as central features, both placing responsibility on the wider community. While this was community-based, because Protestants dominated the professions of magistrates, judges, lawyers and watchmen, Catholics continued to trust in local methods of justice (Malcolm 2005: 18).
Developments in the eighteenth century brought the domination of English law throughout Ireland. In the early 1700s churchwardens1 in Dublin appointed part-time constables who in turn were charged with appointing night watchmen. However in 1715 legislation secularised this task, giving this role to the Dublin Corporation (O'Sullivan 1999: 12). Magistrates fulfilled this role in the rest of Ireland. The position of watchman became paid during the eighteenth century due to the incompetence and corruption of post-holders and as citizens became less willing to volunteer (Henry 1994). A distinctive feature of the organised watch system was a clear division of organisation between day and night policing, with resources being directed toward the latter. In 1778 there were two-dozen daytime police in Ireland whereas night-time numbers ranged from 350 to 400 (Palmer 1988: 97).
Over time this system was deemed insufficient to maintain order. In addition to the growth of cities and the impact of urbanisation, there were outbreaks of social unrest with the growth of the United Irishmen in the late eighteenth century. From the 1760s the Whiteboys, a secret organisation, used violent tactics to uphold the agrarian rights of tenants. Legislation was passed to address riots and uprisings, the number of constables was increased and the army was regularly drafted in to provide supplementary support. Indeed, Boyle argues it was the problems generated by having the army so embedded in Ireland that âstimulated the search for alternatives to regular soldiersâ (1972: 15). Westminster was at this time discussing the establishment of a police force in England, and the unrest in Ireland made the need all the more pronounced. What would emerge was the first formal system of policing in the British Isles.
The Dublin Police Act 1786
The legislation that created the Dublin Police in 1786 was initially drafted for the purpose of creating a police force for London. A variety of factors in the English capital drove the movement towards organised police:
All of these forces (i.e. rapid urbanisation, increases in disorder, the prohibition on collective violence as a means of equalising power relations, the impetus provided by men such as Patrick Colquhoun and Sir Robert Peel, increased anxiety about thieftaking as a method of law enforcement, the onset of lawyerisation, the burgeoning system of private prosecution, and the âcommon matrixâ of rationalism) consequenced themselves, in a broad sense, in the movement from a paternalistic, particularistic and spasmodic model of law enforcement to a new homogenised and disciplinary agency of social control.
(Kilcommins 1998: 45)
The Bill for London was defeated in Westminster as an invasion of liberties (Philips 1980: 172) but was considered appropriate for transference to Dublin. The concerns in swelling urban populations in England, which centred on increasing crime and class power conflicts, differed wildly from Ireland where British concerns related to controlling the agrarian disturbances of the 1760s in rural areas and threats of nationalism. Transposing the Bill from one jurisdiction to another when âthe attached âtwinsâ exhibited very different personality characteristicsâ and when the concerns arose from different foundations should have raised grave concerns (Palmer 1988: 36). Large sections of the Irish population voiced concerns with the Bill. Henry Grattan, a leading nationalist Irish politician, described the Bill as âthe most obnoxious and alarming that ever, perhaps, arrested the attention of an Irish senateâ (Grattan 1822: 291). Dublin newspapers decried the development particularly in light of its rejection in London. The Irish Parliament enacted the Bill, creating the first professional police force in Great Britain, in spite of these concerns. The vote took place though at a time of year when many MPs were absent from Parliament due to assizes where they served on juries or participated in cases.
The Act divided Dublin into four districts, each with a Chief Constable, ten petty constables and one hundred night watchmen, all Protestant, salaried, uniformed and armed. Three Commissioners of Police were appointed by government, one of whom served as Chief Commissioner. Policing in Ireland was centralised from the beginning and the political involvement went further. While the London Bill had barred MPs from assuming the role of Commissioner, this was not the case in Dublin. Not only could the head of the police be a political appointment but they could indeed by a politician, with all the attendant concerns.
While crime in Dublin fell in the force's first year, those who had opposed the Bill continued to challenge the Dublin Police after their creation. A campaign was launched and âafter a decade of agitation, riots, inquiries, petitions and repeal bills, opposition to the police establishment was to triumph, and the Dublin Police Act was abolishedâ (Boyle 1973a: 104). Complaints concerned abuse of powers, detention without cause and improper treatment of detainees though it was the expense of the system that enticed the government to repeal the Act within a decade. For four years Dublin reverted to a reduced watch system under the control of the Lord Mayor (Herlihy 2001: 8). The argument that it was inefficient and expensive meant a return to the Dublin Police in 1799, even though it was lingering debt from the original Dublin Police that had immobilised the system. It was at this time that there developed âa conception of police as a separate department of government authority, subject to government control and responsible for executing government policyâ (Boyle 1973b: 342). The dissolution of the Irish Parliament, via the Act of Union 1800, brought an end to any domestic discussions of policing matters for over a century. All further legislation on policing stemmed from Westminster and so any Irish concerns were silenced.
Establishing the Royal Irish Constabulary
Initial developments for a police force for the rest of the island occurred at the same time as the Dublin Police was created. The Preservation of the Peace Act 1787 created baronial police forces, rather than a general police force for which Thomas Orde, the Chief Secretary of Ireland, had advocated. Robert Peel extended this in 1814 into a Peace Preservation Force. Initially this comprised just 400 men but within eight years it had grown to over 2300 men (Palmer 1988: 21). This was a reactive system of policing: once the Lord Lieutenant deemed an area âtroubledâ a squad comprising of a Chief Magistrate, a Chief Constable and 50 constables was dispatched (Curtis 1871: 3). This system was expensive and, as it was paid for locally, unpopular. Nor was it sufficiently numbered to provide support and control. An Irish Militia had been introduced in 1793 and two years later a Yeomanry was added, indicating the perceived limitations of the Peace Preservation Force.
Following crop failures and attendant agitation, the Constabulary Act 1822 created a County Constabulary to supplement the Peace Preservation Force. The Peace Preservation Force dealt with disorder and riots, while the Constabulary orientated itself towards crime prevention and investigation. The Irish Constabulary Act 1836 consolidated the force into one body, the Irish Constabulary, centrally controlled by Dublin Castle, numbering nearly 8000 men and with a rigid hierarchical structure. Perhaps due to the abiding British concern for order in Ireland there was a strong connection between the military and the Constabulary. Curtis documents how many generals and officers of the army were drafted into senior positions, though this tended to be problematic as the work was so different in nature (1871: 45). In 1842 a national training depot was built in Phoenix Park in Dublin, bringing an end to separate, provincial police training. From 1846 responsibility for payment for policing rested with government, rather than local authorities, eradicating many objections while solidifying centralised control.
Structurally little changed in the coming decades. Reforms related either to increases in pay or a redistribution of numbers, often following disorder such as the Belfast riots of 1864, which led to the creation of a force for the city of Belfast. An inquiry was held in 1865 into pay and conditions. Two years later, when the Constabulary defeated a rebellion by Fenians in various parts of the country, the Constabulary was renamed the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). The men involved were financially rewarded for the âgallantry and fidelity which had been displayedâ and became a talking point in Westminster (Curtis 1871: 179).
As its purpose was to maintain order in a country where social, political and agrarian unrest was common, the RIC was a large force with 14,000 men in the 1880s, larger than an Garda SĂochĂĄna today, although the size altered dependent with the unrest. This was particularly evident during the Famine, the Land War of the 1880s and in the final days before independence during which times the numbers swelled. At all times, numbers were far greater than in England. In 1851 Ireland and England had the same number of police officers, though the population of Ireland was 6.5 million compared to 18 million in England. There was also a reserve force, which could be deployed rapidly. Malcolm (2005: 59) estimates that 100,000 men served as policemen in Ireland between 1822 and 1922, most of whom were Catholic Irishmen.
The RIC inhabited some 1400 barracks, a huge number. There are two obvious reasons for this: first, transport being as it was, in order to be able to respond to emergencies quickly police needed to be widely spread, and second, such omnipresence supported the British efforts at control. Unsurprisingly, given the volume, barracks were not large and usually comprised a sergeant and four constables. There was a rigid, hierarchical structure to the RIC, with parallels to an army structure. Barracks were grouped into 250 districts in the country, and were presided over by a district inspector. Districts were further organised by county, with each county having a county inspector, assisted by a head constable. Disparity in county sizes meant that some county inspectors presided over scores of stations while others had just a dozen or so under their command. Above the rank of county inspector were the four provincial police commissioners above whom sat the Inspector General, aided by a deputy and assistant. The Inspector General reported directly to the Chief Secretary of Ireland. This structure created a somewhat top-heavy situation: in 1913 there was one officer for every 3.1 men (Malcolm 2005: 47).
Until 1922, therefore, two separate forces, the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) and the RIC, co-existed in Ireland. The size, militaristic style and centralised nature has been described as a combination of a rural gendarmerie, a civil police and a basic civil service (Brady 2000: 2). This was in stark contrast to the system that developed in England, where the first police force came in the form of the Metropolitan Police Service in 1829 (Emsley 1996). Increasing civil disorder finally outweighed the civil liberties concerns of the 1780s. Peel, who introduced the legislation for the Metropolitan Police, had served as Chief Secretary in Ireland from 1812 to 1818. In difference to the Irish experience, in order to address lingering hostility, the first constables in England were directed to be civil and polite to win over the public. Their uniforms (blue) were purposefully clearly distinguishable from the military (red). These police officers were unarmed, save for wooden truncheons. Beat patrols dominated their work and their stated purpose was to prevent crime. Proven efficiency in tackling crime helped overcome much hostility. Over the coming decades similar police forces were established in other urban areas such as Manchester, Birmingham and Bolton. In 1856 every county was required to establish a police force. An Inspectorate of Constabulary was created and central government agreed to contribute 25 per cent of the cost of policing. Within a short space of time over 200 police forces existed throughout England and Wales, each with its own Chief Constable. Brogden (1987) has argued that in spite of this quick proliferation animosity continued, particularly among the working classes who perceived the police as an organisation of control.
The distinctions between policing in both countries are clear. Ireland had a centralised, hierarchical structure entirely funded and directly answerable to government. In England policing was locally organised, only partially funded by government with an oversight body to ensure a certain level of professionalism was maintained. In Ireland the police function was to maintain order, while in England it was to prevent crime. Boyle comments that,
In the final result the divergence of the systems of the police when finally established in the nineteenth century, as between England and Ireland, is to be explained not in terms of different conceptions of police, but in the different conditions, social, economic and political obtaining in the two societies.
(Boyle 1973a: 95)
Ireland was a colony ruled from Westminster while England was emerging as a democratic state. From a...
