Royal Ulster Constabulary - Policing in A Divided Society

Policing in A Divided Society

Policing Northern Ireland's divided society proved difficult, as each community (nationalist and unionist) had different attitudes towards the institutions of the state. To unionists, the state had full legitimacy, as did its institutions, its parliament, the Crown and its police force. Northern Ireland's Catholics, overwhelmingly nationalists, had been told by their leaders that Partition was temporary. They and their politicians had therefore refused to take part in the Province's institutions in the mistaken belief that Northern Ireland would be ceded to the South. Unionist fears of fundamental government services being infiltrated by Catholics disloyal to the new state polarised society and made many Catholics unwilling or unable to join the police or civil service.

This mindset was expressed by David Trimble in the following terms: "Ulster Unionists, fearful of being isolated on the island, built a solid house, but it was a cold house for Catholics. And northern nationalists, although they had a roof over their heads, seemed to us as if they meant to burn the house down".

From a nationalist perspective, the tone was set for the force at an early stage, when Dawson Bates in August 1922 gave the Orange Order special permission for an Orange Lodge to be formed in the RUC. In April 1923 he would speak at its first reunion, later however involvement in politics was "discouraged". In 1924 John Nixon a District Inspector would be dismissed after widespread complaints after making a "fiercely Unionist" speech at an Orange Order function. Despite this the force's character had been fixed according to Irish nationalist activist and author Michael Farrell. According to Farrell they were looked upon by most Catholics as simply the “coercive arm of the Unionist Party”. The minister with responsibility was an Orangeman, with a police Orange Lodge; therefore he contends the RUC could scarcely be unbiased where the Unionist Party or the Orange Order was concerned. An enquiry by the British National Council for Civil Liberties in 1936 stated: "t is difficult to escape the conclusion that the attitude of the government renders the police chary of interference with the activities of the Orange Order and its sympathisers".

On 4 April 1922 the RIC was disbanded. On 7 April the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland) 1922 came into force, and the Belfast government though prohibited from raising or controlling a military force appointed Major General Solly Flood as a military advisor.

The RUC was to be 3,000-strong, recruiting 2,000 ex-RIC and 1,000 A Specials. Half of the RIC men recruited were to be Catholic, making up a third of positions within the force. Fewer than half the required number of Catholics came forward and the balance was made up with more A Specials, who continued to exist as a separate force.

Throughout its existence, republican political leaders and Roman Catholic clergy urged members of the nationalist community not to join the RUC. Social Democratic and Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) and critic of the force Seamus Mallon, who later served as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, stated that the RUC was "97% Protestant and 100% unionist".

The RUC did attract some Roman Catholic members. These men were for the most part former members of the RIC, who came north from the Irish Republic after the Irish Free State was set up. The bitterness of the fighting in the Anglo-Irish War precluded them from remaining in territory now controlled by their former enemies. The percentage of Catholics in the RUC dropped as these men retired over time. IRA attacks on Catholics who joined the RUC, and the perception that the police force was "a Protestant force for a Protestant people" meant that Catholic participation in the Royal Ulster Constabulary always remained disproportionally small in terms of the Catholic percentage of the overall Northern Irish population. Notable exceptions include RUC Chief Constable Sir James Flanagan KBE (Derry), Deputy Chief Constable Michael McAtamney, Assistant Chief Constable Cathal Ramsey, Chief Superintendent Frank Lagan as well as RUC Superintendents Kevin Benedict Sheehy (Glengormley) and Brendan McGuigan.

In December 1997, London's The Independent newspaper published a leaked internal RUC document which reported that a third of all Catholic RUC officers had suffered religious discrimination and/or harassment from Protestant fellow officers.