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‘Our Irish Constabulary’: The British Palestine Gendarmerie, 1922–1926

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The Irish Imperial Service

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series ((CIPCSS))

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Abstract

This chapter examines the raising and recruitment in 1921–1922 of the British (Palestine) Gendarmerie, a 760-strong striking force/riot squad overwhelmingly drawn from Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) sources, which inaugurated Irish involvement in Palestine’s policing. It assesses the impact that both its inclusion of large numbers of former Black and Tans, and the appointment of Irish police chief, Hugh Tudor, to overall command, had on public perceptions of the force, and examines official attempts to make it more politically palatable by obscuring its RIC roots. The reasons for RIC personnel enlisting in the force are explored, with particular focus on the part played by the intimidatory campaign directed against them by Irish Republican Army elements in the early independence period on account of their counterinsurgency role in the Irish Revolution.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    L. J. Butler, Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002), 4.

  2. 2.

    Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. IV, 1917–1922 (London: Heinemann, 1975), 496.

  3. 3.

    British National Archives (TNA), Cabinet papers (CAB), CAB/24/127, Churchill, Memorandum to the Cabinet, 11 August 1921.

  4. 4.

    Churchill College, Cambridge, Churchill Papers, (CHAR), CHAR/17/11, ‘Circular to all troops’, 29 October 1921.

  5. 5.

    Imperial War Museum, London (IWM), Sir Henry Wilson Papers (HHW), 2/52B/41, Congreve to Wilson, 23 November 1921; IWM, HHW/1/36/12, Diaries, 14 December 1921; IWM, HHW/2/52B/42, Wilson to Congreve, 16 December 1921; IWM, HHW/2/52B/45, Congreve to Wilson, 30 December 1921.

  6. 6.

    CHAR/17/13, Churchill, Colonial Office memorandum, 11 August 1921.

  7. 7.

    By December 1921 there were 1022 Arab policemen (other ranks) as opposed to just 100 Jews while, one year later, the figures stood at 1047 and 82 respectively. TNA, Colonial Office files (CO) 733/22/619, ‘Report on Palestine Administration, 1st July 1920–31st December 1921’; Government of Palestine, ‘Report on Palestine Administration, 1922’ (London: HMSO, 1923), 39.

  8. 8.

    Horne, Job, 72.

  9. 9.

    See, for example, TNA, CO/733/61/43, Meinertzhagen, ‘Military Report on Palestine, 25 March 1923; TNA, CO/733/110, ‘Report of the High Commissioner on the Administration of Palestine, 1920–1925’; Horne, Job, 71.

  10. 10.

    Derek Sayer, ‘British Reaction to the Amritsar Massacre, 1919–1920’, Past & Present, 131 (1991): 130–164, 144.

  11. 11.

    IWM, HHW/2/52B/41, Congreve to Wilson, 23 November 1921.

  12. 12.

    TNA, CO/733/15/190, Young to Churchill, 31 August 1921.

  13. 13.

    UK Parliamentary Archives, London, David Lloyd George collection, LG/F/9/3/86 Churchill to Lloyd George, 3 September 1921.

  14. 14.

    Churchill conflated the Black and Tans with the ADRIC and used the terms ‘Auxiliaries’, ‘Auxiliary Division’, and ‘Black and Tans’ interchangeably when referring to the two groups combined. CHAR/17/15, Churchill, MED minute, 11 September 1921.

  15. 15.

    TNA, CO/733/29/403, Clauson, Colonial Office minute, 26 December 1922.

  16. 16.

    TNA, CO/733/15/201, Meinertzhagen to Shuckburgh, 3 October 1921; CHAR 17/15, Churchill to Meinertzhagen, 10 October 1921.

  17. 17.

    CHAR/17/11, Churchill to Samuel, 12 November 1921.

  18. 18.

    CHAR/17/11, Samuel to Churchill, 15 November 1921.

  19. 19.

    TNA, CAB/24/131, Churchill, Cabinet memorandum, undated November 1921.

  20. 20.

    IWM, HHW/1/36/3, Wilson, Diaries, 1 March 1921; IWM, HHW/2/52B/34, Wilson to Congreve, 11 October 1921; IWM, HHW/2/52/B/40, Wilson to Congreve, 10 December 1921.

  21. 21.

    IWM, HHW/1/36/3, Wilson, Diaries, 16 March 1921; IWM, HHW/2/52B/47, Wilson to Congreve, 10 January 1922.

  22. 22.

    CHAR/17/22, Congreve to Churchill, 21 February 1922; Royal Green Jackets (Rifles) Museum, Winchester, Walter Congreve Diaries, 23 March 1922.

  23. 23.

    IWM, HHW/1/36/12, Wilson, Diaries, 19 December 1921; Richard Meinertzhagen, Middle East Diary, 1917–1956 (London: Crescent, 1959), 19 December 1921, 114–115.

  24. 24.

    TNA, Treasury files (T), T/161/21, ‘Minutes of a meeting held at the Colonial Office on Thursday, December 22, 1921’, 28 December 1921; TNA, CO 733/15/639, Grindle to Tudor, 24 December 1921.

  25. 25.

    TNA, CO/733/33/7-23, Tudor to Wood, 4 January 1922; TNA, CO/733/33/27-8, Shuckburgh to Tudor, 16 January 1922.

  26. 26.

    TNA, CO/904/178/186, C. A. Walsh, ‘Palestine Gendarmerie’, 25 January 1922.

  27. 27.

    William Crewe, ‘British Gendarmerie of Palestine’, 28 July 1959 (MS in possession of R. Porter, Belfast), 1–2.

  28. 28.

    Kent Fedorowich, ‘The Problems of Disbandment: the Royal Irish Constabulary and Imperial Migration’, Irish Historical Studies, 30/117 (1996): 88–110, 101.

  29. 29.

    Jon Lawrence, ‘Forging a Peaceable Kingdom: War, Violence and Fear of Brutalization in Post-First World War Britain’, Journal of Modern History, 75 (2003): 557–589, 557.

  30. 30.

    H. W. Nevinson, ‘The Anglo-Irish War’, Contemporary Review, 120/7 (1921): 23–24.

  31. 31.

    Lawrence, ‘Forging’, 587–588.

  32. 32.

    CHAR/17/11, Samuel to Churchill, 11 December 1921.

  33. 33.

    TNA, CO/733/33/293, Churchill to Samuel, 14 January 1922.

  34. 34.

    TNA, CO/733/15/639-40, Grindle to Tudor, 24 December 1921.

  35. 35.

    TNA, T/161/21, ‘Colonial Office meeting minutes, 22 December 1921’.

  36. 36.

    CHAR/17/26, Churchill to Shuckburgh, 11 January 1922.

  37. 37.

    Irish Times, 18 January 1922, 5; 20 January 1922, 4.

  38. 38.

    TNA, CO/733/33/292, Shuckburgh to Tudor, 14 January 1922.

  39. 39.

    TNA, CO/733/40/22, Shuckburgh to McNeill, 7 March 1922.

  40. 40.

    CHAR/17/22, Tudor to Churchill, 18 February 1922.

  41. 41.

    See, for example, Michael Hopkinson (ed.), The Last Days of Dublin Castle: the Mark Sturgis Diaries (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1999), 32, 61, 250 n. 88; IWM, HHW 1/36/3, Wilson, Diaries, 16 March 1921.

  42. 42.

    TNA, CO/733/38/688, Meinertzhagen to Shuckburgh, 14 February 1922.

  43. 43.

    Middle East Centre Archives, Oxford (MECA), Palestine Police Old Comrades’ Association Collection (PPOCAC), Gerald Foley papers, G2/17, ‘Questionnaire’, undated MS; Palestine Police Old Comrades’ Association Newsletter (PPOCA Newsletter), 119 (1980): 39 & 130 (1983): 56.

  44. 44.

    Horne, Job, 76–77.

  45. 45.

    TNA, Home Office files (HO) 351/66, ‘Nominal roll of all ranks of the British Section of the Palestine Gendarmerie’, Samuel to Churchill, 17 July 1922.

  46. 46.

    TNA, HO/184/1-43, Royal Irish Constabulary General Registers of Service; TNA, HO/184/50-53, Irish Constabulary records: Auxiliary Division; Herlihy, RIC Officers.

  47. 47.

    Freeman’s Journal, 24 January 1922, 4; 17 March 1922, 4.

  48. 48.

    Hansard, House of Commons debates, 16 February 1922, vol. 150 cc1197–1198; 20 February 1922, vol. 150 cc1630–1631; 09 March 1922, vol. 151 c1519; 01 May 1922, vol. 153 cc1003–1004.

  49. 49.

    Monahan to Porter, 8 August 1969 (MS in possession of R. Porter, Belfast); Jenifer Glynn (ed.), Tidings from Zion: Helen Bentwich’s Letters from Jerusalem 1919–1931 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), 82.

  50. 50.

    TNA, CO/733/35/616-7, Shuckburgh, Colonial Office minute, 20 December 1922; ibid., Ormsby-Gore, Colonial Office minute, 21 December 1922.

  51. 51.

    TNA, ‘Report on Palestine Administration, 1922’, 38.

  52. 52.

    Hammond, ‘Ideology and Consensus’, 119.

  53. 53.

    CHAR 2/126/43, Tudor to Churchill, 21 September 1923.

  54. 54.

    TNA, CO/733/18/397, Young to Shuckburgh, 13 February 1922; TNA, CO/733/18/406, Meinertzhagen, ‘Draft note to Secretary of State’, 22 February 1922.

  55. 55.

    Gerald Ryan, ‘Major General Sir Hugh (‘Black’) Tudor’, History Ireland, 13/5 (2005): 9; IWM, Misc. 175, Item 2685, Joy Cave, A Gallant Gunner General: the Life and Times of Sir H. Hugh Tudor, K.C.B., C.M.G., 343. See also MECA, GB165-0197, Angus McNeill collection (McNeill collection), A/1 Diaries, 4 March 1923.

  56. 56.

    Irish Times, 5 April 1922, 6.

  57. 57.

    TNA, HO/45/13029, ‘Royal Irish Constabulary Tribunal; brief summary of work’, March 1928, 1. The RIC Tribunal was established in 1922 to assist ‘cases of exceptional hardship’ among disbanded policemen.

  58. 58.

    D. M. Leeson, The Black and Tans: British Police and Auxiliaries in the Irish War of Independence (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011), 77.

  59. 59.

    Horne, Job, 76.

  60. 60.

    See, for example, TNA, CO/733/39/286-9, Prosser to Colonial Office, 21 July 1922; TNA, CO/739/15, Wilkinson to Irish Office, 29 April 1922.

  61. 61.

    While this is significantly higher than W. J. Lowe’s estimate of 70 per cent for British Black and Tans in general, it corresponds to Leeson’s figure of 90 per cent for his ‘sample cluster consisting of the single largest monthly intake of British recruits; the 1153 who joined up in October 1920’. W. J. Lowe, ‘Who Were the Black and Tans?’, History Ireland, 12/3 (2004): 47–51, 49; Leeson, Black and Tans, 69.

  62. 62.

    Douglas Duff, Bailing, 19. See also idem, Rough, 94.

  63. 63.

    TNA, T/172/1551, McNeill to Churchill, 7 April 1926.

  64. 64.

    Cork Examiner, 13 March 1922, 10; TNA, HO/144/22573, Jones to RIC resettlement branch, 1, 19 January 1923.

  65. 65.

    Cork Examiner, 13 March 1922, 10.

  66. 66.

    Lowe, ‘Black and Tans’, 49.

  67. 67.

    Dáil Debates, 12 September 1922, vol. 1, no. 3, c 135–136.

  68. 68.

    W. J. Lowe and Elizabeth L. Malcolm, ‘The Domestication of the Royal Irish Constabulary 1836–1922’, Irish Economic and Social History, 19 (1992): 27–48, 36–38.

  69. 69.

    David Fitzpatrick, Politics and Irish Life: Provincial Experience of War and Revolution (Cork: Cork UP, 1998), 8.

  70. 70.

    Dáil Éireann debates, 10 April 1919, vol. F, no. 6, c67; Fitzpatrick, Politics, 11.

  71. 71.

    Duff, Bailing, 19; Constabulary Gazette, 28 January 1922, 1086.

  72. 72.

    TNA, CAB/24/134, Greenwood to Treasury, 24 February 1922.

  73. 73.

    National Archives of Ireland (NAI), Department of the Taoiseach (TSCH), 3/S1842, Cope to Collins, 22 June 1922; William Kennedy to Florence Kennedy, 27 February 1924 (MS in possession of F. Garside, Suffolk).

  74. 74.

    TNA, HO/144/22600, Home Office minute, 22 May 1931.

  75. 75.

    John D. Brewer, The Royal Irish Constabulary: an Oral History (Belfast: Queen’s University Institute of Irish Studies, 1990), 122.

  76. 76.

    Piaras Béaslaí, Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland, vol. 2 (Dublin: Phoenix, 1926), 248.

  77. 77.

    TNA, CO/762/126/1, Timothy Daly, Irish Grants Committee (IGC) application, Stack to Daly, 23 June 1922.

  78. 78.

    TNA, CAB/24/134, Tudor to Irish under-secretary, 5 February 1922.

  79. 79.

    TNA, CAB/24/134, ‘Summary of Proceeding of Interviews of Representative Bodies with Chief Secretary’, 6–8 February 1922.

  80. 80.

    Hughes, Defying the IRA, 193.

  81. 81.

    NAI, TSCH/3/S1842, Cope to Collins, 22 June 1922.

  82. 82.

    Keith Middlemas (ed.), Thomas Jones: Whitehall Diary, vol. I, 1916–1925 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1969), 7 December 1921, 183.

  83. 83.

    Brewer, RIC Oral History, 118–119.

  84. 84.

    Ibid., 122.

  85. 85.

    Irish Independent, 26 May 1922, 7.

  86. 86.

    Brian Hughes, ‘“As Good a Free State citizen as Any They Had”: the RIC after Disbandment’ (paper presented to ‘Outsiders in Independent Ireland, 1922–1949’ conference, Maynooth University, 5 September 2014); Brewer, RIC Oral History, 122.

  87. 87.

    Figures abstracted from Richard Abbott, Police Casualties in Ireland, 1919–1922 (Cork: Mercier, 2000).

  88. 88.

    Elizabeth Malcolm, The Irish Policeman, 1822–1922: a Life (Dublin: Four Courts, 2006), 220; CHAR 22/12/ B, Churchill to Tudor, 5 April 1922; Irish Independent, 11 April 1922; Hansard, House of Commons debates, 10 May 1922, vol. 153 c2288.

  89. 89.

    Robert Holmes to Mary Holmes, undated letter, c. March 1922 (MS in possession of Robin H., Kilkenny).

  90. 90.

    Martin Higgins, Gloucestershire, Author interview, 28 November 2009.

  91. 91.

    Robert H., Canada, Correspondence with author, 27 November 2011; Margaret O., Meath, Correspondence with author, 24 September 2011.

  92. 92.

    TNA, CAB/24/134, ‘Summary of Proceeding of Interviews of Representative Bodies with Chief Secretary’, 6–8 February 1922.

  93. 93.

    Military Archives, Dublin, Bureau of Military History (BMH), Witness Statements (WS) 1001 Thomas Lavin, 2 September 1954.

  94. 94.

    Yaacov Eliav, Wanted (New York: Shengold, 1984), 178–179.

  95. 95.

    Thomas Toomey, The War of Independence in Limerick, 1912–1921, (Limerick, 2010), 609; BMH, WS 1316 John Flanagan, 15 December 1955; BMH, WS 474 Liam Haugh, 10 January 1957.

  96. 96.

    TNA, War Office files (WO), WO/35/131/1, ‘Summary of evidence in case of Thomas Traynor’. Other gendarmes had also appeared as witnesses in the courts martial of IRA members. See, for example, TNA, WO/35/123/31 & WO/35/123/1.

  97. 97.

    TNA, CO/904/116/840, RIC county inspector’s report, Limerick, September 1921; Freeman’s Journal, 27 September 1921, 3; 30 September 1922, 5. Although Cassidy was born in Scotland, his parents were from Queen’s County and the family returned to Ireland when he was four.

  98. 98.

    Fletcher is numbered ‘2’ in the famous photograph reputed to be that of the ‘Cairo Gang’.

  99. 99.

    In addition to the above-mentioned July 1922 list, see TNA, CO/733/38/748-9, ‘Palestine Gendarmerie—nominal roll officers’, 7 April 1922; TNA, CO/733/27/235-45, ‘British Section Palestine Gendarmerie: revised nominal roll of members’, 20 November 1922; TNA, CO/733/95/478-86, ‘Nominal roll of British Section of the Palestine Gendarmerie by ranks showing dates of expiration of contract, Year 1925/1926’; TNA, CO/733/94/261-3, ‘Return of officers by grades of the British Gendarmerie on 1 May 1925’.

  100. 100.

    Nine of the eleven men who attained commissioned rank during the force’s four years were promoted from the ranks.

  101. 101.

    TNA, CO/733/61/43, Meinertzhagen, ‘Military Report’; F. H. Kisch, Palestine Diary (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), 14 February 1923, 32.

  102. 102.

    TNA, CO/733/61/43, Meinertzhagen, ‘Military Report’.

  103. 103.

    TNA, CO/733/19/335, Churchill, Memorandum on Tudor’s appointment, undated, February 1922.

  104. 104.

    TNA, CO/733/29/403-4, Clauson, Colonial Office minute, 26 December 1922.

  105. 105.

    TNA, CO/733/48/188, Clauson, Colonial Office minute, 13 September 1923.

  106. 106.

    RAF Museum, London, MFC76/1/285 MRAF Viscount Trenchard collection (Trenchard collection), Trenchard to Tudor, 21 November 1923; TNA, CO/733/48/188, Clauson, Colonial Office minute, 13 September 1923.

  107. 107.

    MECA, McNeill collection, Diaries, 10 August 1923, 26 November 1923, 30 March 1924.

  108. 108.

    IWM, HHW/1/36/3, Wilson, Diaries, 28 March 1921.

  109. 109.

    Quotations from correspondence in TNA, J77/1990/2359, ‘Divorce Court file 2359: Tudor v Tudor’.

  110. 110.

    MECA, McNeill collection, Diaries, 15 February 1923.

  111. 111.

    Edwin Samuel, A Lifetime in Jerusalem (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1970), 8.

  112. 112.

    IWM, Misc. 175, Item 2685, Cave, Gallant Gunner General, 326–327; Ryan, ‘Sir Hugh (‘Black’) Tudor’, 9.

  113. 113.

    Tim Pat Coogan, Wherever Green is Worn: the Story of the Irish Diaspora (London: Hutchinson, 2000), 416.

  114. 114.

    CHAR/2/126/43, Tudor to Churchill, 21 September 1923.

  115. 115.

    TNA, T/172/1551, McNeill to Churchill, 20 May 1926; TNA, CO 733/120/731-3, Howard to Shuckburgh, 10 June 1926.

  116. 116.

    TNA, CO/733/112/553-4, Plumer to Amery, 24 February 1926; TNA, CO/733/112/707, Plumer to Amery, 27 February 1926.

  117. 117.

    TNA, HO/45/13029, RIC Tribunal summary, 4.

  118. 118.

    Brewer, RIC oral history, 117; TNA, CO/733/53/436, Webster to Ormsby-Gore, 30 April 1923.

  119. 119.

    NAI, Dept. Finance files, DF/37/11/24, ‘Note of meeting between British Treasury and Irish Department of Finance administrators’, 16 February 1925; TNA, HO/144/22600, ‘Question of furnishing addresses and supplying information concerning former members of the Royal Irish Constabulary’, 17 April 1931.

  120. 120.

    Ibid.; TNA, HO/144/22600, Home Office minute, 11 June 1931.

  121. 121.

    TNA, HO/144/22600, Home Office to Office of the Paymaster General, 10 September 1931.

  122. 122.

    Digan ultimately resettled in Australia where he died in 1942. Paul M., Roscommon, Correspondence with author, 6 October 2011; TNA, CO/762/38/7, Dignan IGC application.

  123. 123.

    Police Service of Northern Ireland: Police Museum, Belfast, RUC service record cards, nos. 3753, 3754, 3790, 3791, 3853, 3930, 3943, 3802, 3804, 3942, & 4442.

  124. 124.

    MECA, McNeill collection, Diaries, 28 December 1922.

  125. 125.

    Robert Holmes to Mary Holmes, undated letter, c. September 1922 (MS in possession of Robin H., Kilkenny).

  126. 126.

    Holmes was awarded £30 by the RIC Tribunal in January 1924 in compensation for property seized in 1922 by ‘ill-disposed persons’. TNA, HO/351/97.

  127. 127.

    Martina C., Galway, Correspondence with author, 23 July 2012.

  128. 128.

    Fedorowich, ‘Problems’, 107; TNA, HO/144/22600, Home Office minute, 22 May 1931.

  129. 129.

    Fedorowich, ‘Problems’, 105.

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    Seán William Gannon

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Gannon, S.W. (2019). ‘Our Irish Constabulary’: The British Palestine Gendarmerie, 1922–1926. In: The Irish Imperial Service. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96394-5_2

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