The problems of disbandment: the Royal Irish Constabulary and imperial migration, 1919–29

Abstract

When the Anglo-Irish campaign ended in July 1921, the British government, in accordance with the agreed settlement, initiated the disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary (R.I.C.). For over a century the Irish police force, renamed the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1867, had carried the burden of policing in Ireland, and after 1916 it bore the brunt of escalating republican intimidation and violence. Now that the conflict was over and the R.I.C. faced dissolution, a number of questions remained outstanding. What would Whitehall do to assist former members of this force once British troops had withdrawn? What contingencies, if any, had been made by the British government for the speedy removal of these men who could not remain in Ireland ‘simply because they [had] performed their duty fearlessly as loyal servants of the Crown’? Was compensation forthcoming, and if so, what forms would it take? One suggestion which received close scrutiny was their resettlement in the overseas dominions — but how receptive were the dominion governments to this proposal?