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I watched "The Wind that shakes the barley" myself and in many ways it is an excellent film, with a lot of interesting historical detail, however, it could have carried the caption "No RIC men were harmed in the making of this movie"It covers the bloodiest period in the RICs history, when policemen were being blasted off there bicycles, or coming out of mass, or in their barracks but none of this is shown. In fact in one scene the IRA enter a police station at night and merely issue a gentlemenly warning to the RIC men in it. Once the film enters the civil war period one of the actors says loudly, this is terrible, Irishmen are killing Irishmen, but of course the IRA had been killing their fellow Irishmen in the uniform of thr RIC for years.

Strictly speaking, I thought the Black and Tans were Englishmen who joined the RIC and although they did not have enough uniforms for the first few months, they would soon have been indistinguishable from the local men. The Auxies were a seperate force, who wore the Tam O shanter hats but it usually these guys people mean when they use the phrase Black and Tans.The plan was to recruit 8000 but only 2000 were ever in Ireland at any one time.They were the most decorated force in the world and included 2 VC holders in their ranks. Their activities have been well documented, and they were feared by local Unionists as well who knew they were sitting targets once the Back and Tans had finished their rampages.