74 replies to this topic

[Stanley_C_Jenkins]

If they were ex-convicts, how could they have been allowed to join what was, in effect, an arm of the British Police? I thought they were hand-picked men with blameless military records?

[KGB]

It is not a terribly good B A (Hons) dissertation, but it occurs to me that some here may find it interesting (Recruitment and nationalism in Irish regiments 1914-1921). I ought to have stuck to Russian nationalism 1914-1921. I shall dig it out later.

[munster]

I was of the beleif that the majority of the auxilarys were former officers, am i wrong in that?john

[Stanley_C_Jenkins]

The majority were officers, many of whom had been decorated for bravery during the war. The attached recruiting advert lists the supposed requirements for the jobm including "tact and judgment"!

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[munster]

Stanley thank you for that.john

[Lt Colonel Gerald Smyth]

munster, on 02 July 2012 - 10:15 AM, said:

I was of the beleif that the majority of the auxilarys were former officers, am i wrong in that?john

Yes the whole 'convicts and lunatics' thing is pure propaganda from Erskine Childers (even those who are cited with criminal records are on the whole men who just spent some time in the guardhouse for the normal military misdemeanours). The Auxies were demonised partly because they were so effective but also because so many members of the regular Royal Irish Constabulary, Dublin Metropolitan Police and Irish Regiments of the British Army ended up in the Civic Guard (later to be the Garda) and Free State Army. The Auxies therefore provided a convenient scapegoat for all the vigilante actions of the security forces and are concentrated on to the exclusion of all else.
The Auxies were all ex-officers and many were men promoted from the ranks who had no intention of going back to their previous lowly status now that the war was over (I think they contained 2 VC winners?). I'm sure many must have also served in the Russian relief force? Must have been a remarkable force to serve with, your pick of the veterans of the Great War promoted on merit shown over 4 years on the the battelfield.

For books on the subject I'd recommend;

http://www.amazon.co...41390414&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.co...41390446&sr=1-4

Richard Bennett's The Black and Tans is ok but is more of a general history of the conflict and contains some pretty glaring inaccuracies.

[KGB]

One of the last surviving ones was interviewed for TV about 30 years back. By his accent definitely not an officer. He said he joined as after demob he was unemployed. Read Crozier for a pukka account of the Tan War.

[Flintlock]

Lt Colonel Gerald Smyth, on 04 July 2012 - 08:17 AM, said:

The Auxies were demonised partly because they were so effective but also because so many members of the regular Royal Irish Constabulary, Dublin Metropolitan Police and Irish Regiments of the British Army ended up in the Civic Guard (later to be the Garda) and Free State Army. The Auxies therefore provided a convenient scapegoat for all the vigilante actions of the security forces and are concentrated on to the exclusion of all else.
.

Less than 150 members of the RIC,out of a serving force of over 12,000,transferred to the newly formed Garda Síochana.

The Auxiliaries had a reputation which they earned themselves.

[bill24chev]

i know it is only fiction but there was an episode of "When the boat comes in" where the RIC Auxilleries tried to recruit the James Bolam character. It ended with a shoot out between auxillieries and some "IRA"men including at least one who had served with the Bolam Character in WW1

Aas i said only fiction but I got the impression it was based at least partly on fact

[Stanley_C_Jenkins]

KGB, on 04 July 2012 - 09:36 AM, said:

One of the last surviving ones was interviewed for TV about 30 years back. By his accent definitely not an officer. He said he joined as after demob he was unemployed. Read Crozier for a pukka account of the Tan War.

So what does an officer sound like? If they were promoted from the ranks they may well have had regional accents. As I understand it, many members of the Auxiliary Division had indeed been unemployed as a result of the reduction in size of the army after the Great War. Having said that, there seen to have been a large number of former RAF officers in the RICAD.

[Stanley_C_Jenkins]

Another World War One hero who was involved in the 1919-23 "Troubles" was the one-armed Colonel Gerald Smyth (1885-1920) of Banbridge, Co.Down, a divisional commissioner of Police, who had been awarded the DSO & Bar, plus the French and Belgian Croix d Guerre. He was shot by the IRA, and IRA supporters shot at the mourners attending his funeral - sparking vicious sectarian rioting in Banbridge.

[murrough]

Thanks Stanley for pointing that out,but the Smyth brothers did have a troubled reputation.With regard to members of the Crown forces joining the civic guard and the new Free State Army,there was nothing unusual in that,their expertise and training would have been welcomed,and I am sure a good proportion of them had pro Irish Independence sentiments and others would have been former home rulers.The excesses of some of the crown forces may have radicialised them more.
Another few to add to the list should be,
Sgt Martin Doyle VC,MM.
Lieut.Emmet Dalton MC.
L/C George Adamson DCM.

Obviously these were on the Irish  Pro-Independence side but ithought I would add their names(just for for balance,of course.)

[Lt Colonel Gerald Smyth]

Stanley_C_Jenkins, on 04 July 2012 - 12:01 PM, said:

Another World War One hero who was involved in the 1919-23 "Troubles" was the one-armed Colonel Gerald Smyth (1885-1920) of Banbridge, Co.Down, a divisional commissioner of Police, who had been awarded the DSO & Bar, plus the French and Belgian Croix d Guerre. He was shot by the IRA, and IRA supporters shot at the mourners attending his funeral - sparking vicious sectarian rioting in Banbridge.

And this is why I use him as my posting name, so he and his brother are not forgotten. The gentle heroes which we leave behind us.

[Lt Colonel Gerald Smyth]

Flintlock, on 04 July 2012 - 11:20 AM, said:

Less than 150 members of the RIC,out of a serving force of over 12,000,transferred to the newly formed Garda Síochana.

The Auxiliaries had a reputation which they earned themselves.

127 RIC went directly into the Civic Guard (isn't called Garda until later) and many more join later especially after the Kildare mutiny when most of the republicans are kicked out. By 1925 they actually changed the rules to encourage more ex-RIC men to join and even proposed giving their sons preferential treatment in recruitment. The 1000 strong Dublin Metropolitan Police served the Free State faithfully for years before being absorbed wholesale into the Civic Guard. It's thought that up to half the officers and a fifth of the other ranks in the Free State Army were ex-British Army as indeed were many of the later recruits to the Garda (in Ireland there was a great tradition of ex-Guardsmen joining the police, nearly 1000 returned to the ranks as reservists during the Great War, one reason the RIC were so understrength in 1919).

http://policehistory.com/early.html

http://www.royalirishconstabulary.com/

http://irishconstabulary.com/

The Auxies were demonised and their actions exaggerated to provide retroactive justification for the IRA attacking the RIC in the first place but it's also a convenient fiction (for ALL sides) as they can be blamed for all the excesses of the security forces when the regular armed forces (which would still recruit by the 100,000s in the Free State right up to the present day) and regular RIC officers such as Eugene Igoe and John Nixon engaged in just as many vigilante actions. It's rather like the 'bad SS/good Wermacht' myth which prevailed in Germany for a long time, if the SS could be blamed for everything then the wider German armed forces could be excused. Many RIC/DMP and Irish soldiers just kept their heads down during the conflict as they wanted to continue living in Ireland after Home Rule, the Auxies didn't have that problem so fought fire with fire.
   The Evening News in 1919 talks of the men who volunteered for the North Russia Relief force which would have been about the same time saying 'it was the soldier without a medal ribbon who is conspicuous', the other ranks containing an ex-Major with the DSO, an ex-Captain with an MC and an ex-RFC pilot wearing 'Worn clothes, jackets in which the pockets drooped pitifully, collars devoid of ties, ties to which no collars give effect, baggy trousers, boots thin and cracked. I suspect the Auxies would have been similar. They also recruited ex-naval officers for guarding docksides, if you watch the series Boardwalk Empire' you can see them in one ep. Sean Bean made a pretty good film called 'Troubles' where he plays an Auxie.

[KGB]

Accent? Officers taken from the ranks? Yes valid points. Not quite so valid (and I ought to have added) the interviewee was a private. Final word as to 1919-21, my Dad's family lived in the hottest locations in Ireland for atrocities. British army units may not have been loved but were respected. Black & Tans certainly were not. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between "The Wind that shakes the barley" and the more maudlin observations by the B Specials and their revisionists.

[Lt Colonel Gerald Smyth]

KGB, on 04 July 2012 - 03:50 PM, said:

Accent? Officers taken from the ranks? Yes valid points. Not quite so valid (and I ought to have added) the interviewee was a private. Final word as to 1919-21, my Dad's family lived in the hottest locations in Ireland for atrocities. British army units may not have been loved but were respected. Black & Tans certainly were not. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between "The Wind that shakes the barley" and the more maudlin observations by the B Specials and their revisionists.

Well both my grandfathers were B-specials (my maternal grandfather joined after witnessing the IRA murder a man right in front of him) and 'revisionist' isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's not wrong to question a historical orthordoxy if you can prove that orthodoxy is untrue and historians like Sheehan, Leeson, Hart, McCall have done that time and again. I mean on this very thread we have discounted the myth that the B&T's were ex-convicts and it's only recently that people have begun to accept that the Drogheda star and crescent symbol being linked to Turkish famine relief is untrue.
You rather prove my point in that the B&T's were disposable villains for Irish nationalism, they cease to exist after 1922 and therefore can be safely lambasted from all sides. Yet like Arthur Percival, William King, Jocelyn 'Hoppy' Hardy, Ormonde Winter they would be the men who would fight WW2

[Flintlock]

Lt Colonel Gerald Smyth, on 04 July 2012 - 03:45 PM, said:

127 RIC went directly into the Civic Guard (isn't called Garda until later) and many more join later especially after the Kildare mutiny when most of the republicans are kicked out. By 1925 they actually changed the rules to encourage more ex-RIC men to join and even proposed giving their sons preferential treatment in recruitment. The 1000 strong Dublin Metropolitan Police served the Free State faithfully for years before being absorbed wholesale into the Civic Guard. It's thought that up to half the officers and a fifth of the other ranks in the Free State Army were ex-British Army as indeed were many of the later recruits to the Garda (in Ireland there was a great tradition of ex-Guardsmen joining the police, nearly 1000 returned to the ranks as reservists during the Great War, one reason the RIC were so understrength in 1919).

http://policehistory.com/early.html

http://www.royalirishconstabulary.com/

http://irishconstabulary.com/

The Auxies were demonised and their actions exaggerated to provide retroactive justification for the IRA attacking the RIC in the first place but it's also a convenient fiction (for ALL sides) as they can be blamed for all the excesses of the security forces when the regular armed forces (which would still recruit by the 100,000s in the Free State right up to the present day) and regular RIC officers such as Eugene Igoe and John Nixon engaged in just as many vigilante actions. It's rather like the 'bad SS/good Wermacht' myth which prevailed in Germany for a long time, if the SS could be blamed for everything then the wider German armed forces could be excused. Many RIC/DMP and Irish soldiers just kept their heads down during the conflict as they wanted to continue living in Ireland after Home Rule, the Auxies didn't have that problem so fought fire with fire.
   The Evening News in 1919 talks of the men who volunteered for the North Russia Relief force which would have been about the same time saying 'it was the soldier without a medal ribbon who is conspicuous', the other ranks containing an ex-Major with the DSO, an ex-Captain with an MC and an ex-RFC pilot wearing 'Worn clothes, jackets in which the pockets drooped pitifully, collars devoid of ties, ties to which no collars give effect, baggy trousers, boots thin and cracked. I suspect the Auxies would have been similar. They also recruited ex-naval officers for guarding docksides, if you watch the series Boardwalk Empire' you can see them in one ep. Sean Bean made a pretty good film called 'Troubles' where he plays an Auxie.

This is pseudo historical garbage

[murrough]

Lt Colonel Gerald Smyth, on 04 July 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

And this is why I use him as my posting name, so he and his brother are not forgotten. The gentle heroes which we leave behind us.

Smyth was a controversial and divisive figure who paid the ultimate price for his convictions and his brother George went the same way. George seems to have been shot by friendly fire while making a botched attempt to arrest Breen and Treacy, he vowed to avenge his brother and went off  half cocked to make the arrest/execution.

[murrough]

I for one never thought that the B&Ts or the Auxies were actual convicts, I was always under the impression that the "convict" term related to the fact that some (not all) behaved like criminals while on duty in Ireland,BTW while not wanting to speak ill of the dead Peter Hart's work has not stood up to scrutiny.

[murrough]

Lt Colonel Gerald Smyth, on 04 July 2012 - 03:45 PM, said:

The Auxies were demonised and their actions exaggerated to provide retroactive justification for the IRA attacking the RIC in the first place but it's also a convenient fiction (for ALL sides) as they can be blamed for all the excesses of the security forces when the regular armed forces (which would still recruit by the 100,000s in the Free State right up to the present day) and regular RIC officers such as Eugene Igoe and John Nixon engaged in just as many vigilante actions. It's rather like the 'bad SS/good Wermacht' myth which prevailed in Germany for a long time, if the SS could be blamed for everything then the wider German armed forces could be excused. Many RIC/DMP and Irish soldiers just kept their heads down during the conflict as they wanted to continue living in Ireland after Home Rule, the Auxies didn't have that problem so fought fire with fire.

Look here http://en.wikipedia....ki/Godwin's_law

[Flintlock]

murrough, on 04 July 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

Look here http://en.wikipedia....odwin's_law

It really is  remarkable how often Godwin's hypothesis is proven to be accurate in on-line debates.

[KGB]

Agree with Murrough on this one. My Great-Grandfather (who by 1921 was blind, crippled and spoke no English) was nearly murdered by Tans. Fill soldiers full of booze, give them no leadership and ensure they are not punished and whether it is the forest of Volhynia in 1943 or Galway in 1920 the same result occurs.

[murrough]

Flintlock, on 04 July 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

It really is  remarkable how often Godwin's hypothesis is proven to be accurate in on-line debates.

Very true FL but I was just having a bit of  "craic"   . To be honest I sometime struggle to not use  the auld Nazi anology myself.

[Alan Curragh]

Folks - we are on incredibly sensitive ground here - please can all posters think very carefully about what they post. Also no more Nazi references please

Thanks

Alan

[Dez]

As this topic has not been closed, I would like to submit Brig. General Edgar Allen Wood for inclusion in Great War heroes in the Irish Troubles 1916 - 23.   In Ireland he was 2nd in Command of the Auxiliary Division R.I.C. from Sept. 1920 until Feb. 1921 and Commander of the Division from Feb. 1921 until Feb. 1922.   His army career stretches from before the South African War (1899 - 1902) when as a young lieutenant he took part in the Jameson Raid and was captured by the Boers.   During the Great War he was decorated for gallantry many times, winning the D.S.O. four times and was mentioned in dispatches seven times.   In addition the French awarded him the C. De G.   He was wounded five times, gassed twice and was buried once.   Being an officer who led from the front, he was revered by the men he commanded.  

Dez