Black and Tans
The Black and Tans , or more properly known as the Royal Irish Constabulary Reserve Force, was just one of the paramilitary forces employed by the Royal Irish Constabulary from 1920 to 1921, to deal with supporters of Sinn Féin and its military wing the IRA.
Following the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, when Irish nationalists occupied the main post office building in protest against British rule of Ireland, the Sinn Féin home rule party won a series of election victories. Unionists in Ulster obtained a concession from the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, that Ulster's six north-eastern counties would remain apart from any home rule settlement. In 1919, the Irish Volunteers, now known as the Irish Republican Army, or IRA, began the "War of Independence", and Sinn Fein proclaimed an independent Ireland.
The British advertised for men willing to "face a rough and dangerous task", helping to boost the ranks of the Royal Irish Constabulary in policing the increasingly hostile Irish population and recruited heavily from World War One army veterans. The Black and Tans (in Irish na Dúchrónaigh) was the nickname given to the special auxiliary force used to fight the Sinn Féin; the name came from a well-known pack of hounds in Limerick. They wore a mixture of khaki British Army uniforms (usually their own) with issued dark blue police hats and belts, and were recruited in England. The first recruits arrived in Ireland on March 25, 1920, after three months of training. The government also raised another unit, the Auxiliary Division of the Constabulary, known as the Auxiliaries. The Black and Tans acted with the Auxiliaries in the government's attempts to break the IRA.
They were paid ten shillings a day - enough to motivate unemployed war veterans, and a lack of RIC uniforms led to the khaki and blue uniforms. With minimal police training, their main role was to strengthen the military might of police posts, where they functioned as sentries, guards, escorts for government agents, reinforcement to the regular police, crowd control, and mounted a determined counterinsurgency campaign. Because of these duties they were viewed by Republicans as an army of occupation.
On the first Bloody Sunday in November 1920, where the IRA killed 14 British undercover officers, the Black and Tans surrounded a football match in Dublin. Shooting broke out and 12 people were killed. Republicans also refer to atrocities carried out by the Black and Tans in Cork city, which was heavily burned, and Balbriggan. The mayor of Cork died after a 78-day hunger strike in prison in Brixton, London. The IRA and other Irish Nationalists suggest that the Black and Tans had adopted a shoot-to-kill policy, describing their tactics as "state-supported terrorism". However their are many documentted cases of the para-militaries stopping the RIC and the Army from committing acts of atrocities. There is no doubt as to the ferocity of the fighting and atrocities committed by both sides, and feelings continue to run high regarding their actions.
Black and tan is also the name given to a popular drink involving Guinness floating on top of Bass ale.Background
Partition
In 1920 the Government of Ireland Act established the idea of two parliaments in Dublin and Belfast, subordinate to the London parliament. In 1921 the newly-elected parliaments sat for the first time. The Dublin parliament was dominated by Sinn Féin, and the Belfast parliament of Northern Ireland was opened by George V. An uneasy truce between the two sides came into effect.Beer