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The Black and Tans (Template:Lang-ga) were one of two ad hoc paramilitary units employed by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) as Temporary Constables from 1920 to 1921 to suppress revolution in Ireland, the other body being the Auxiliaries. Composed largely of British World War I veterans, the unit's nickname arose from the colour of the improvised khaki uniforms initially worn by its members. Although established to target the Irish Republican Army, the Black and Tans became notorious through their numerous attacks on the Irish civilian population.

Foundation

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The late 19th and early 20th centuries in Ireland were dominated by Irish nationalists' pursuit of Home Rule (or even independence) from the United Kingdom. Legislation introducing Home Rule, i.e. limited self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom, was passed by the British parliament in 1914, but its implementation was immediately postponed because of the outbreak of the First World War. Irish Republicans, who sought full independence for Ireland rather than just Home Rule, staged the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin against British rule. The Rising initially lacked wide public support within Ireland, and was suppressed by the British military authorities within a week. However, public outrage against large-scale arrests by the British, and the courts martial and executions of the rising's leaders, helped radicalise mainstream Irish nationalism. As the implementation of Home Rule continued to be postponed due to the ongoing war, and the British threatened to impose conscription in Ireland to aid the war effort, nationalist support rapidly came to be channeled into the revolutionary Sinn Féin movement. Sinn Féin won 73 out of 105 seats in Ireland at the general election held in December 1918, and in January 1919 organised themselves as the First Dáil, which then declared an independent Irish Republic. In the same month the Irish Republican Army began the Irish War of Independence, a guerrilla campaign against British rule; in 1919 this consisted of attacks on the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).

Attacks against the RIC escalated during 1919, and in September the British administration outlawed the Dáil. Starting work on its next Home Rule Act, it had to plan for a growing loss of morale in the RIC with an interim solution until the Act was ready.

In January 1920, the British government started advertising in British cities for men willing to "face a rough and dangerous task", helping to boost the ranks of the RIC in policing an increasingly anti-British Ireland. There was no shortage of recruits, many of them unemployed First World War army veterans, and by November 1921 about 9,500 men had joined. This sudden influx of men led to a shortage of RIC uniforms, and the new recruits were issued with khaki army uniforms (usually only trousers) and dark green RIC or blue British police surplus tunics, caps and belts. These uniforms differentiated them from the Army and the Regular RIC, and gave rise to the force's nickname: Christopher O'Sullivan wrote in the Limerick Echo on 25 March 1920 that, meeting a group of recruits on a train at Limerick Junction, the attire of one reminded him of the Scarteen Hunt, whose "Black and Tans" nickname derived from the coloration of its Kerry Beagles. Ennis comedian Mike Nono elaborated the joke in Limerick's Theatre Royal, and the nickname soon took hold, persisting even after the men received full RIC uniforms.

The new recruits received three months' hurried training, and were rapidly posted to RIC barracks, mostly in Dublin, Munster and eastern Connacht. The first men arrived on 25 March 1920. The government also raised another unit, the Auxiliary Division of the constabulary, known as the Auxiliaries or Auxies. This group was made up of ex-army officers. The Black and Tans acted with the Auxiliaries in the government's attempts to break the IRA.

Conduct in Ireland

Temporary Constables were paid the relatively good wage of 10 shillings (½ a pound) a day plus full board and lodging. With minimal police training, their main role was to increase the strength of police posts, where they functioned as sentries, guards, escorts for government agents, reinforcement to the regular police, and crowd control, and mounted a determined counter-insurgency campaign. They and the Auxies became known as Tudor's Toughs after the police commander, Major-General Sir Henry Hugh Tudor. They were viewed by Republicans as an army of occupation because of these duties. They soon gained a reputation for brutality, as the RIC campaign against the IRA and Sinn Féin members was stepped up and police reprisals for IRA attacks were condoned by the government.

Alexander Will, from Forfar in Scotland, was the first Temporary Constable to die in the conflict. He was killed during an IRA attack on the RIC barracks in Rathmore, County Kerry, on 11 July 1920.

The Black and Tans were not subject to strict discipline in their early months in Ireland and as a result, their deaths at the hands of the IRA in 1920 were often repaid with arbitrary reprisals against the civilian population. In the summer of 1920, the Black and Tans burned and sacked many small towns and villages in Ireland, beginning with Tuam in County Galway in July 1920 and also including Trim, Balbriggan, Knockcroghery, Thurles and Templemore amongst many others. In November 1920, the Tans "besieged" Tralee in revenge for the IRA abduction and killing of two local RIC men. They closed all the businesses in the town and let no food in for a week. In addition they shot dead three local people. On 14 November, the Tans abducted and murdered a Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Michael Griffin, in Galway. His body was found in a bog in Barna a week later. Finally, the Black and Tans sacked Cork city, on the night of 11 December 1920, destroying a large portion of the city centre.

In January 1921, the British Labour Commission produced a report on the situation in Ireland which was highly critical of the government's security policy. It said the government, in forming the Black and Tans, had "liberated forces which it is not at present able to dominate". However, since 29 December 1920, the British government had sanctioned "official reprisals" in Ireland — usually meaning burning property of IRA men and their suspected sympathisers. Taken together with an increased emphasis on discipline in the RIC, this helped to curb the random atrocities the Black and Tans committed since March 1920 for the remainder of the war, if only because reprisals were now directed from above rather than being the result of a spontaneous desire for revenge.

However, many of the atrocities popularly attributed to the Black and Tans may have been committed by the Auxiliary Division; and some were committed by Irish RIC men. For instance, Tomás Mac Curtain, the Mayor of Cork, was assassinated in March 1920 by local RIC men and the massacre of 13 civilians at Croke Park on Bloody Sunday was also carried out by the RIC although a small detachment of Auxiliaries were also present. However, most Republicans did not make a distinction, and "Black and Tans" was often used as a catch-all term for all police and army groups.

The actions of the Black and Tans alienated public opinion in both Ireland and Great Britain. Their violent tactics encouraged both sides to move towards a peaceful resolution. Edward Wood MP, better known as the future Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, rejected force and urged the British government to make an offer to the Irish "conceived on the most generous lines". Sir John Simon MP, another future Foreign Secretary, was also horrified at the tactics being used. Lionel Curtis, writing in the imperialist journal The Round Table, wrote: "If the British Commonwealth can only be preserved by such means, it would become a negation of the principle for which it has stood". The King, senior Anglican bishops, MPs from the Liberal and Labour parties, Oswald Mosley, Jan Smuts, the Trades Union Congress and parts of the press were increasingly critical of the actions of the Black and Tans. Mahatma Gandhi said of the British peace offer: "It is not fear of losing more lives that has compelled a reluctant offer from England but it is the shame of any further imposition of agony upon a people that loves liberty above everything else".

About 7,000 Black and Tans served in Ireland in 1920–22. More than one-third of them died or left the service before they were disbanded along with the rest of the RIC in 1922, an extremely high wastage rate, and well over half received government pensions. A total of 404 members of the Royal Irish Constabulary died in the conflict and more than 600 were wounded but it is not clear how many of these were pre-war RIC men and how many were Black and Tans or Auxiliaries.

Those who returned to civilian life sometimes had problems re-integrating. At least two former Black and Tans were hanged for murder in Britain and another wanted for murder committed suicide before the police could arrest him.

Legacy

Due to the ferocity of the Tans' behaviour in Ireland and the atrocities committed, feelings continue to run high regarding their actions. "Black and Tan" or "Tan" remains a pejorative term for the British in Ireland, and they are still despised by many in Ireland. One of the most famous Irish Republican songs is Dominic Behan's "Come out Ye Black and Tans". The Irish War of Independence is sometimes referred to as the "Tan War" or "Black-and-Tan War." This term was preferred by those who fought on the anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War and is still used by Republicans today. The "Cogadh na Saoirse" medal, awarded since 1941 by the Irish government to IRA veterans of the War of Independence, bears a ribbon with two vertical stripes in black and tan.

Instructions to Listowel RIC, 19 June 1920

On 19 June 1920 Lieutenant-Colonel Gerald Smyth made a speech to the ranks of the Listowel RIC in which he was reported as having said:

Now, men, Sinn Fein have had all the sport up to the present, and we are going to have the sport now. The police are not in sufficient strength to do anything to hold their barracks. This is not enough for as long as we remain on the defensive, so long will Sinn Fein have the whip hand. We must take the offensive and beat Sinn Fein at its own tactics...If a police barracks is burned or if the barracks already occupied is not suitable, then the best house in the locality is to be commandeered, the occupants thrown into the gutter. Let them die there—the more the merrier. Should the order ("Hands Up") not be immediately obeyed, shoot and shoot with effect. If the persons approaching (a patrol) carry their hands in their pockets, or are in any way suspicious-looking, shoot them down. You may make mistakes occasionally and innocent persons may be shot, but that cannot be helped, and you are bound to get the right parties some time. The more you shoot, the better I will like you, and I assure you no policeman will get into trouble for shooting any man.

The report in the Irish Bulletin noted that the content of the speech proved too much for many of the RIC men who refused to carry out the order and one officer, Constable Jeremiah Mee, put his gun on the table and called Smyth a murderer. He and 13 others resigned, actively changing sides in the conflict with many joining or assisting the Irish Republican Army. Mee became a confidant and ally of Michael Collins.

Less than a month after his controversial instruction to the unit, Smyth was shot dead by an IRA party led by Dan "Sandow" O'Donovan.

References

1. p120 Improving the law Enforcement-Intelligence Community Relationship National Defense Intelligence College, Washington, DC. June 2007
2. ^ Spellissy, Séan (1998-12). The history of Limerick City. Celtic Bookshop. pp. 87–88. ISBN 978-0-9534683-0-0. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help); More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
3. Don't be too tragic about Ireland - The Guardian, October 12, 1921
4. Ireland's War of Independence: The chilling story of the Black and Tans - The Independent, 21 April 2006
5. RIC Record
6. Lord Birkenhead, Halifax (Hamish Hamilton, 1965), p. 122.
7. Lionel Curtis, The Round Table, Vol. XI, No. 43 (June 1921), p. 505.
8. Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (Abacus, 1998), p. 384.
9. The Black and Tans - Bennet, Richard - 1959, Page 222
10. 1919 - 1921 War of Independence
11. The Black and Tans
12. Wilson, A.N.: After the Victorians: the decline of Britain in the world. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, page 211. ISBN 978-0-374-10198-5
13. Blackburn, Terence: A miscellany of mutinies and massacres in India. APH Publishing, 2007, page 176. ISBN 978-81-313-0169-2

Sources

Improving the law Enforcement-Intelligence Community Relationship National Defense Intelligence College Washington, DC June 2007

External links

• BBC News Northern Ireland 1917-20 The Road to Partition posted March 18, 1999
• "The Black & Tans and Auxiliaries in Ireland, 1920-1921: Their Origins, Roles and Legacy", by John Ainsworth, 2001
• Account of the Burning of Abbeydorney, Co. Kerry
• British Security Policy in Ireland, 1920-1921 Ainsworth, John S. (2001) Australian Journal of Irish Studies, 1. pp. 176–190
• Black & Tans in Galway (first hand account and photos)
• Sean Broderick and the Black & Tans (first hand account and photos from Galway)
• Father Michael Griffin (first hand account and photos from Galway)

• Irish War of Independence
• Royal Irish Constabulary
• Paramilitary organizations
• Political repression