page_title: Auxiliary Division
section_title: Recruitment and organisation
hierarchical_section_title: Auxiliary Division / Recruitment and organisation
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 Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary, generally known as the Auxiliaries or Auxies, was a paramilitary unit of the Royal Irish Constabulary during the Irish War of Independence. It was founded in July 1920 by Major-General Henry Hugh Tudor and made up of former British Army officers, most of whom came from Great Britain and had fought in the First World War. Almost 2,300 served in the unit during the conflict. Its role was to conduct counter-insurgency operations against the Irish Republican Army, acting mainly as a mobile striking and raiding force. It operated semi-independently of the RIC and was mainly deployed to southern and western regions where fighting was heaviest.
  The Auxiliaries became infamous for reprisal attacks on civilians and civilian property in revenge for IRA actions, including extrajudicial killings and arson; most notably the burning of Cork city in December 1920.
  The Auxiliaries were distinct from the so-called Black and Tans. These were also former British soldiers who were recruited into the RIC, but served as regular constables.
context_section_description: In September 1919, the Commander-in-Chief, Ireland, Sir Frederick Shaw suggested that the police force in Ireland be expanded via the recruitment of a special force of volunteer British ex-servicemen. During a Cabinet meeting on 11 May 1920, the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill, suggested the formation of a "Special Emergency Gendarmerie, which would become a branch of the Royal Irish Constabulary".  Churchill's proposal was referred to a committee chaired by General Sir Nevil Macready, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in Ireland.  Macready's committee rejected Churchill's proposal, but it was revived two months later, in July, by the Police Adviser to the Dublin Castle administration in Ireland, Major-General H H Tudor.  In a memo dated 6 July 1920, Tudor justified the scheme on the grounds that it would take too long to reinforce the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) with ordinary recruits.  Tudor's new "Auxiliary Force" would be strictly temporary: its members would enlist for a year: their pay would be £7 per week (twice what a constable was paid), plus a sergeant's allowances, and would be known as "Temporary Cadets". At this time a London advertisement for ex-officers to manage coffee stalls at two pounds ten shillings a week received five thousand applicants.
  The ADRIC was recruited in Great Britain from among ex-officers who had served in World War I, especially those who had served in the British Army (including the Royal Flying Corps). Most recruits were from Britain, although some were from Ireland, and others came from other parts of the British Empire.  Many had been highly decorated in the war and three, James Leach, James Johnson, and George Onions, had been awarded the Victoria Cross. Their decorations make it clear that many had been promoted from the ranks: some men, for example, had been awarded the common soldier's Military Medal instead of (or in addition to) the officer's Military Cross.  Enlisted men who had been commissioned as officers during the war often found it difficult to adjust to their loss of status and pay in civilian life, and some historians have concluded that the Auxiliary Division recruited large numbers of these "temporary gentlemen".
  Recruiting began in July 1920, and by November 1921, the division was 1,900 strong. The Auxiliaries were nominally part of the RIC, but actually operated more or less independently in rural areas. Divided into companies (eventually fifteen of them), each about one hundred strong, heavily armed and highly mobile, they operated in ten counties, mostly in the south and west, where Irish Republican Army (IRA) activity was greatest.  They wore either RIC uniforms or their old army uniforms with appropriate police badges, along with distinctive Tam o' Shanter caps.  They were commanded by Brigadier-General F P Crozier.
caption: A group of Auxiliaries and "Black and Tans" in Dublin, April 1921
exif: {}