Royal Irish Constabulary

Royal Irish Constabulary
Constáblacht Ríoga na hÉireann
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AbbreviationRIC
Agency overview
Formed1822
DissolvedAugust 1922
Superseding agencyGarda Síochána
Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)
Legal personalityPolice force
Jurisdictional structure
National agencyUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Operations jurisdictionUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Size84,421 km2 (32,595 sq mi)
Population8,175,124 (1840)
4,390,219 (1911)
General nature

The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, Irish: Constáblacht Ríoga na hÉireann; simply called the Irish Constabulary 1836–67) was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the island was part of the United Kingdom. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), patrolled the capital and parts of County Wicklow, while the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police forces, later had special divisions within the RIC.[1] For most of its history, the ethnic and religious makeup of the RIC broadly matched that of the Irish population, although Anglo-Irish Protestants were overrepresented among its senior officers.

The RIC was under the authority of the British administration in Ireland. It was a quasi-military police force. Unlike police elsewhere in the United Kingdom, RIC constables were routinely armed (including with carbines) and billeted in barracks, and the force had a militaristic structure. It policed Ireland during a period of agrarian unrest and Irish nationalist freedom fighting. It was used to quell civil unrest during the Tithe War, the Young Irelander Rebellion, the Fenian Rising, the Land War, and the Irish revolutionary period.

During the Irish War of Independence, the RIC faced mass public boycotts and attacks by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). It was reinforced with recruits from Britain—the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries—who became notorious for police brutality and attacks on civilians. The Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) was formed to reinforce the RIC in most of the northern province of Ulster.

In consequence of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and partition of Ireland, the RIC was disbanded in 1922 and was replaced by the Garda Síochána in the Irish Free State and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in Northern Ireland.

The RIC's system of policing influenced the armed Canadian North-West Mounted Police (predecessor of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police), the armed Victoria Police force in Australia, the New Zealand Armed Constabulary, the armed Royal Newfoundland Constabulary in Newfoundland and the British South Africa Police in Rhodesia.[2][3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Tobias was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Jim Herlihy (1997). The Royal Irish Constabulary. Four Courts Press. pp. 87–91. ISBN 1-85182-343-3.
  3. ^ Gibbs, Peter; Phillips, Hugh; Russell, Nick (30 March 2010). Blue and Old Gold : the history of the British South Africa Police, 1889-1980 (First ed.). London: 30° South Publishers. ISBN 978-1920143350.