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My book is a revised version of my 2003 dissertation.  Though divided into seven chapters, it falls naturally into three parts. 

 

The first part of the book (Chapters One and Two) consists of a narrative of the Irish War of Independence that focuses on the police forces.  Chapter One first discusses Government policy down to the passage of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act--an important turning point, in my opinion.  It then goes on to examine the organization, duties, strengths, and weaknesses of the major police forces outside of Ulster--the Irish members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, the Black and Tans, and the Temporary Cadets of the Auxiliary Division.  Chapter Two then follows the course of the conflict, with a special focus on events in West Galway.  I chose to study the War of Independence in that district, because it was small enough for a chapter-length case study, and because I thought events in West Galway nicely reflected the overall evolution of the conflict. 

 

(Interestingly, my original plan for a survey of the whole conflict, based on the statistics provided in the Weekly Outrage Reports, was overtaken by W. J. Lowe.  If you want to see what Chapter Two would have looked like if I had followed my original plan see Dr. Lowe's article "The War Against the R.I.C., 1919-1921," Eire-Ireland (Fall/Winter 2002).  Though I think Dr. Lowe did a much better job than I would have.)

 

The second part (Chapters Three and Four) is a social and cultural history of the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries, based on cluster samples taken from the RIC and ADRIC registers, and an institutional history of the Auxiliary Division.  Chapter Three is essentially a revised version of my article in Contemporary British History: in it, I discuss who the Tans were, criticize previous explanations for their behaviour (especially the legend that they were ex-convicts), and examine some cases in which they were caught and punished for breaking the law.  Chapter Four examines the origins and growth of the ADRIC, compares the results of my own research into their backgrounds with the work of A D Harvey, and discusses the disorganization, waste, and even corruption that plagued the Division throughout its existence.

 

The third part of the book (Chapters Five, Six, and Seven) focuses on reprisals, and the causes thereof.  Chapter Five examines the police experience of combat, using evidence from their testimony to military courts of inquiry to let them speak for themselves.  It emphasizes the one-sided nature of the conflict from the police perspective--an important point to keep in mind when trying to explain reprisals.  Finally, the chapter concludes with some remarks on surrender by the police, prisoner-taking (and -killing) by the insurgents, and the Kilmichael Ambush controversy. 

 

Chapter Six examines police reprisals--what they were, and where and when they happened.  Using evidence especially from a previously neglected source (The Register of Crime for the Province of Connaught, July-December 1920), I argue that reprisals were a complex phenomenon that in many ways mirrored the insurgency--like most guerrilla operations, for example, most reprisals were small-scale local initiatives; large-scale reprisals were as uncommon as large-scale ambushes. 

 

Finally, Chapter Seven provides an explanation for reprisals.  In it, I reject character-based explanations--the idea that the British police committed reprisals because they were bad men, hardened by prison or brutalized by war.  I also reject more recent arguments that reprisals were fuelled by ethnic and sectarian hatred (which seems unlikely to be true, given the large numbers of Irish police who took part), or that they were some kind of centrally-directed campaign of state terror. 

 

Ultimately, the police took reprisals for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of the conditions under which they were serving and trying to fight the insurgents--conditions which were largely the product of the government's futile Irish policies.  Rather than a form of state terror, reprisals in the Irish War of Independence should be seen as a crude  substitute for the due process of a judicial system that the insurgents had paralysed.  Paradoxically, the lawless behaviour of the British police (and the willingness of the British government to excuse and even encourage this behaviour) was motivated in large part by their belief in the lawfulness of the British regime in Ireland.

 

As I examine it now, I am acutely conscious of my book's flaws.  It includes too much material on the West of Ireland, and not enough on the South.  It also includes too much material on the summer and autumn of 1920, and not enough on the winter and spring of 1921.  My sample from the Register of the Auxiliary Division looks puny, now that Jim Herlihy is preparing a whole book on the subject.  And Government policy deserves a lengthier, more detailed treatment than I was able to provide in the space available. 

 

Finally, there is just a lot of new research being done on the police forces at this time.  As a consequence, I'm sure my book will be the first word on this subject, not the last; history really is written in sand, rather than stone.  I can only hope that its strengths will at least balance its weaknesses, and that I will have a chance to return to this topic, in about ten years' time, when the picture is clearer.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

D M Leeson, PhD

Department of History

Laurentian University