police

police. The concept of a police force was unknown in medieval Ireland, the law in both Irish‐ and English‐controlled parts of the country being in the main enforced collectively. The Statute of Winchester (1285) introduced justices of the peace (magistrates), constables, and night watchmen, but also obliged householders to keep arms and to participate in the hue and cry. The act, extended to Ireland in 1308, defined the basis of law enforcement for the next 500 years.

By the 18th century, this system of locally controlled self‐policing was in decline, having become both corrupt and ineffective. A growth in agrarian protest from the 1760s and in political agitation from the 1770s spurred central government to attempt major reform. In 1773 and 1787 efforts were made to bolster the Baronial Constabulary, while in 1786 the first modern police force in the British Isles was established in Dublin (see Dublin Metropolitan Police). But, in the face of opposition from magistrates and grand juries, who controlled law enforcement locally, these innovations had only a limited impact.

In 1814 Robert Peel successfully introduced a Peace Preservation Force, to be dispatched to counties proclaimed as disturbed, while in 1822 a permanent, national constabulary was finally established. These two forces were amalgamated and brought fully under central control in 1836 as the Irish, later Royal Irish Constabulary, (RIC). Until it was disbanded in 1922, this armed, paramilitary force policed most of the country. The Dublin Metropolitan Police, an unarmed, civilian force, also established in 1836, policed the capital.

After the Famine, and increasingly from the 1890s, the RIC began to lose its military effectiveness, due to more settled and peaceful times. Thus, despite being reinforced by Auxiliaries and Black and Tans during the Anglo‐Irish War, the force was no match for the guerrilla tactics of the IRA.

After partition new police forces were established. In the north the Royal Ulster Constabulary, supported by an Ulster Special Constabulary, was formed along similar lines to the RIC and, indeed, with large numbers of former RIC men in its ranks. In the south an unarmed, civilian force, the Garda Síochána, was created in 1922 and took over the policing of Dublin in 1925. These two forces policed the two parts of Ireland for the remainder of the century, until the RUC was reconstituted at the beginning of the 21st century.

Bibliography

Allen, G. , The Garda Siochana (1999)
Breathnach, S. , The Irish Police from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1974)
McNiffe, L. , A History of the Garda Siochana (repr., 1999)
Palmer, S. H. , Police and Protest in England and Ireland, 1780–1850 (1988)

Elizabeth Malcolm