page_title: Black and Tans
section_title: Deployment and conduct
hierarchical_section_title: Black and Tans / Deployment and conduct
caption_attribution_description: This shot of joking Black and Tans and Auxiliaries was taken outside the London and North Western Hotel, North Wall, Dublin as they surveyed the damage after an I.R.A. attack on their quarters. Written on the mount of this photo was "Tans glad to have escaped the bombs thrown at their headquarters in Dublin". The next day's Irish Times started a long report with these paragraphs: "... the hotel, which is at present occupied by Auxiliary police, was attacked shortly before eight o'clock yesterday morning by a party of men with bombs and rifles. The police returned the fire, and one of the attackers was seriously wounded and has since been taken to George V. Hospital. Two other men were also wounded and are now patients in the Mater Hospital. Another account from an authoritative source says that twelve bombs were thrown at the windows of the hotel, which is occupied by members of the Auxiliary police force employed on duty at the docks. Six men fired revolvers at the windows. Fire was returned by the police and one man was killed in the act of throwing a bomb, and one cadet was slightly wounded..." Date: Monday, 11 April 1921 NLI Ref.: HOGW 117
context_page_description: The Black and Tans were constables recruited into the Royal Irish Constabulary as reinforcements during the Irish War of Independence. Recruitment began in Great Britain in January 1920 and about 10,000 men enlisted during the conflict. The vast majority were unemployed former soldiers from Great Britain who fought in the First World War, although some were from Ireland.
  The British administration in Ireland promoted the idea of bolstering the RIC with British recruits. They were to help the overstretched RIC maintain control and suppress the Irish Republican Army, although they were less well trained in ordinary policing. The nickname "Black and Tans" arose from the colours of the improvised uniforms they initially wore, a mixture of dark green RIC and khaki British Army. They served in all parts of Ireland, but most were sent to southern and western regions where fighting was heaviest. By 1921, Black and Tans made up almost half of the RIC in County Tipperary, for example.
  The Black and Tans gained a reputation for police brutality and became notorious for reprisal attacks on civilians and civilian property, including extrajudicial killings, arson and looting.
context_section_description: Black and Tans served in all parts of Ireland, but most were sent to southern and western regions where the IRA was most active and fighting was heaviest. By 1921, Black and Tans made up nearly half of all RIC constables in County Tipperary, for example. Few were sent to what became Northern Ireland, however. The authorities there raised their own reserve force, the Ulster Special Constabulary. For the most part, the Black and Tans were "treated as ordinary constables, despite their strange uniforms, and they lived and worked in barracks alongside the Irish police". They spent most of their time manning police posts or on patrol—"walking, cycling, or riding on Crossley Tenders". They also undertook guard, escort and crowd control duties. While some Irish constables got along well with the Black and Tans, "it seems that many Irish police did not like their new British colleagues" and saw them as "rough". 
  Alexander Will, from Forfar in Scotland, was the first Black and Tan to die in the conflict. He was killed during an IRA attack on the RIC barracks in Rathmore, County Kerry, on 11 July 1920.
  The Black and Tans soon gained a reputation for brutality. In the summer of 1920, Black and Tans began responding to IRA attacks by carrying out arbitrary reprisals against civilians, especially republicans. This usually involved the burning of homes, businesses, meeting halls and farms. Some buildings were also attacked with gunfire and grenades, and businesses were looted. Reprisals on property "were often accompanied by beatings and killings". Many villages suffered mass reprisals, including the Sack of Balbriggan (20 September), Kilkee (26 September), Trim (27 September), Tubbercurry (30 September) and Granard (31 October). Following the Rineen ambush (22 September) in which six RIC men were killed, police burned many houses in the surrounding villages of Milltown Malbay, Lahinch and Ennistymon, and killed five civilians. In early November, Black and Tans "besieged" Tralee in revenge for the IRA abduction and killing of two local RIC men. They closed all the businesses in the town, let no food in for a week and shot dead three local civilians. On 14 November, Black and Tans were suspected of abducting and murdering a Roman Catholic priest, Father Michael Griffin, in Galway. His body was found in a bog in Barna a week later. From October 1920 to July 1921, the Galway region was "remarkable in many ways", most notably the level of police brutality towards suspected IRA members, which was far above the norm in the rest of Ireland. The villages of Clifden and Knockcroghery suffered mass reprisals in March and June 1921.
  Members of the British government, the British administration in Ireland, and senior officers in the RIC tacitly supported reprisals as a way of scaring the population into rejecting the IRA. In December 1920, the government officially approved certain reprisals against property. There were an estimated 150 official reprisals over the next six months. Taken together with an increased emphasis on discipline in the RIC, this helped to curb the random atrocities the Black and Tans committed for the remainder of the war, if only because reprisals were now directed from above rather than being the result of a spontaneous desire for revenge. 
  Many of the activities popularly attributed to the Black and Tans may have been committed by the Auxiliary Division or 'old' RIC constables. For instance, Tomás Mac Curtain, the Mayor of Cork, was assassinated in March 1920 by local RIC men under the command of an Inspector General who had been a 'plague on the local Catholic population'. The Burning of Cork city on December 11, 1920 was carried out by K Company of the Auxiliary Division, in reprisal for an IRA ambush at Dillon's Cross. The shooting dead by Crown forces of 13 civilians at Croke Park on Bloody Sunday, in retaliation for the killing of British intelligence officers was carried out by a mixed force of military, Auxiliaries and RIC, though it is not clear who initiated the shooting. In the aftermath, "The army blamed the 
caption: A group of Black and Tans and Auxiliaries outside the London and North Western Hotel in Dublin following an attack by the IRA, April 1921
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