Comparaciones (no odiosas) entre la (Royal) Irish Constabulary y la Guardia Civil Española en los relatos de viajeros de habla inglesa por la España de los siglos XIX y XX

Abstract

During the last decades of the 19th century and the first of the 20th century the Spanish Guardia Civil received multiple appraisals from English-speaking travellers in Spain at the time – all of them British– as regards this body’s efficiency, professionalism and incorruptibility. The comparison of this Spanish military corps with the (Royal) Irish Constabulary, a police corps of similar professional prestige, is constant in the English travel literature of the period, to the extent of becoming a recurrent literary cliché. The time span during which both corps collect such laudatory comparisons in the travel accounts of the age coincides almost exactly with the life of the Royal Irish Constabulary, that is, from 1867, the year when the Irish corps was awarded the adjective of “Royal” as a recognition of their loyalty and meritorious work in the repression of the popular and pro-independence riots and their support to the colonial interests of the metropolis, up to its final disappearance in 1922. From then on the Guardia Civil was more frequently compared to other famous and prestigious foreign police forces such as the French Gendarmerie, the Italian Carabinieri, the F.B.I., the New York Police and the Canadian Mounted Police.