ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 260, 30 July 1919, Page 7

ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY

AN INFLUENCE FOR ORDER. In the ' height of the Eenian movement in the " 'sixties," after the close of the American Civil War, an Irish orator was addressing a large meeting in New York. "A hundred thousand men," he declared, "aro ready to riso against British rulo in Ireland."

"Thin, why tho divil don't they?" cried a man in the crowd.

"Becauso tho police won't let 'em!" was the' reply.

And it "was, in .the main, true (says a writer in the London "Daily News"). If the It.'l'.C. had gone over to the Fenians, or adopted a passive attitude, anything might have happened jji Ireland. But how did the Constabulary securo and exert this great power?- It must seem odd to people in Great Britain to be told that a force of some 12,000 men, about two-thirds of tho London Metro: politan police, should be able to control a country of 32,000 square _ miles, or about one to three square miles. The R.I.C. owe their origin to Thomas Drummond, au Edinburgh man, born in 1797, and an engineer and scientist of great promise, and considerable accomplishment. He it was who invented "Drummond's Light," and led. to jreat improvements in lighthouses. While on the Ordnance Survey 'in Ireland he became deeply interested in Irish affairs, and in 1835 .he was appointed UnderSecretary at Dublin Castle, and virtually the ruler of tho country. One of the first things Drummond did was to reform the police force. Ireland was then 1 in a terrible state of disorder and discontent. The Orangemen held sway everywhere, particularly in the police. Drummond did not hesitate to face them, and he conceived the bold idea of organising the constabulary mainly from amongst the Roman Catholic peasantry, on the avowed principle of placing his trust in tho people them-, selves. The result more than justified even his generous and sanguine expectations. Outside Dublin, Belfast. Cork, and n few other centres the Irish are almost entirely a rural population, and a constabulary station of even four intelligent and determined men in each parish was always able to exert an influence out of all proportion to their number.