Editing Royal Ulster Constabulary (section)

==Policing in a divided society==
Policing [[Northern Ireland]]'s divided society proved to be difficult, as each of the main religious blocs (Protestant and Roman Catholic) had different attitudes towards the institutions of the state.<ref>Weitzer 1985, 1995</ref> To most [[Ulster Protestants]], the state had full legitimacy, as did its institutions, its parliament, its police force and the Crown. Many of Northern Ireland's Catholics, along with their political leaders, believed that partition would only be temporary.<ref name="English341">{{Cite book |last=English|first=Richard|page=341|title=Irish Freedom – The History of Nationalism in Ireland|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=978-0-330-42759-3|quote=In Northern Ireland itself, nationalists faced some very difficult issues of community, struggle and power from those which faced their southern counterparts&nbsp;... Many nationalists at the time of partition had assumed the division of Ireland to be a temporary one|year=2007}}</ref><ref name="Bartlett425">{{Cite book |last=Bartlett|first=Thomas|title=Ireland, A History| publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-42234-6|page=425|date=30 June 2011}}</ref> Many abstained from and/or refused to take part Northern Ireland's institutions for a variety of reasons, including the treatment of Catholic civilians by the Ulster Special Constabulary during the recent conflict and the mistaken belief that Northern Ireland would be ceded to the Free State in the not too distant future.<ref name="Connolly">{{Cite book |last=Connolly|first= S.J.|title=Oxford Companion to Irish History|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-923483-7| page=410quote=Returned to the first House of Commons in 1921 were 40 Unionists, 6 Nationalists, and 6 Sinn Feiners&nbsp;... No nationalist member took their seats prior to 1925, and organised nationalist abstention occurred frequently between 1932 and 1945|year= 2007}}</ref><ref name="Leech">{{Cite book|last=Bardon|first=Jonathan|title=A History of Ulster|publisher=The Blackstaff Press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofulster00jona/page/500 500–1]| quote=Except in Irvinestown and Ballycastle, Nationalists and Sinn Fein refused to meet the Leech commission. The result was that local Unionist parties, with the enthusiastic co-operation of Dawson Bates, were able to dictate the positioning of boundaries with meticulous care to their own complete satisfaction. The results speak for themselves. Since many Catholics abstained in 1924, the best comparison is between the local election results of 1920 and 1927&nbsp;... Unionists countered criticism by pointing to the failure of Nationalists and Sinn Fein to make submissions to the Leech commission. Certainly by refusing to take their seats in the Northern Ireland parliament, Nationalists and Sinn Fein not only reinforced the Unionist view that they were intent on bringing down the state but also denied themselves a wider audience and a chance to obtain some redress from Westminster.|isbn=0-85640-764-X|url-access=registration| url=https://archive.org/details/historyofulster00jona/page/500|year=2005}}</ref> Protestant fears of strategically important government services being infiltrated by Catholics disloyal to the new state polarised society and made most Catholics unwilling and/or unable to join either the police or the civil service.<ref name="doherty"/>

This mindset was referenced by [[David Trimble]]:<blockquote>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<ref name=nobel-trimble>{{cite web|last1=Trimble|first1=David|title=Nobel Peace Prize 1998 – Nobel Lecture, Oslo|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1998/trimble-lecture.html|publisher=nobelprize.org|access-date=20 February 2014|date=10 December 1998|archive-date=24 February 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140224112241/http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1998/trimble-lecture.html|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>

In August 1922, Dawson Bates gave the [[Orange Order]] special permission for an Orange Lodge to be formed in the RUC. In April 1923 he spoke at its first reunion. In 1924 [[John William Nixon]], a District Inspector suspected of involvement in the murder of Catholic civilians, would be dismissed after widespread complaints <!-- by whom? -->that he had made a "fiercely Unionist" speech at an Orange Order function. An inquiry by the British [[National Council for Civil Liberties]] in 1936 concluded that:<blockquote>[I]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.<ref name="farrell">{{cite book|last1=Farrell|first1=Michael|author-link=Michael Farrell (activist)|title=Northern Ireland: The Orange State|date=1992|publisher=Pluto Press|isbn=0-86104-300-6|pages=54, 96, 97|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qdYJAQAAIAAJ|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref name=hnsrd-ni-v72-926>{{cite book|last1=Northern Ireland. Parliament. House of Commons|title=Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) House of Commons Official Report|volume=72|publisher=H.M. Stationery Office, 1969|page=926|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L06xAAAAIAAJ|year=1969}}</ref></blockquote>

On 4 April 1922, the RIC was disbanded. Three days later, the [[Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland) 1922]] came into force, and the Belfast government, although prohibited from raising or controlling a military force, appointed Major General [[Frederick Solly-Flood (British Army officer)|Frederick Solly-Flood]] as a military advisor. The RUC was to be 3,000-strong, recruiting 2,000 ex-RIC and 1,000 "A Specials". It was intended that half of the RIC men recruited were to be Catholic, making up a third of positions within the force. However, fewer than half the expected number of Catholics came forward and the balance was made up with more A Specials, who continued to exist as a separate force.<ref name="farrell"/>

Throughout its existence, republican political leaders and most Roman Catholic clerics discouraged Catholics from joining the RUC.{{citation needed|date=September 2015}} [[Seamus Mallon]], [[Social Democratic and Labour Party]] [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) and critic of the force, who later served as [[Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland]], stated that the RUC was ''"97% Protestant and 100% unionist"''.<ref>{{Cite web |date=June 18, 2020 |title=Police reforms helped bring peace to Northern Ireland |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/18/police-reforms-helped-bring-peace-northern-ireland/ |access-date=2024-05-16 |website=www.washingtonpost.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=McAtackney |first1=Laura |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yqPREAAAQBAJ&dq=Seamus+Mallon+Royal+Ulster+Constabulary+97%25&pg=RA1-PT252 |title=The Routledge Handbook of the Northern Ireland Conflict and Peace |last2=Catháin |first2=Máirtín Ó |date=2023-11-13 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-95778-5 |language=en}}</ref> The RUC did attract some [[Roman Catholic]]s, mostly former members of the RIC, who came north from the [[Irish Free State]] after the bitterness of the fighting during the [[Anglo-Irish War]] largely precluded them from remaining in territory now controlled by their enemies. The percentage of Catholics in the RUC dropped as these men retired over time. {{citation needed|date=February 2014}}

Notable Catholics in the RUC include RUC Chief Constable Sir [[James Flanagan (police officer)|James Flanagan]], who survived an IRA assassination attempt; Deputy Chief Constable Michael McAtamney; Assistant Chief Constable Cathal Ramsey; Chief Superintendent Frank Lagan,<ref name=rdude-twist>{{cite web|last1=Edwards|first1=Ruth Dudley|author-link=Ruth Dudley Edwards|title=The twists and turns on the road to one rule of law|url=http://www.ruthdudleyedwards.co.uk/Journalism05/IrInd05_37.html|work=Sunday Independent|access-date=25 February 2015|date=13 November 2005|via=ruthdudleyedwards.co.uk|archive-date=25 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150225144232/http://www.ruthdudleyedwards.co.uk/Journalism05/IrInd05_37.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and Superintendents Kevin Benedict Sheehy and Brendan McGuigan. In December 1997, ''[[The Independent]]'' (London) published a leaked internal RUC document which reported that a third of all Catholic RUC officers had reported suffering religious discrimination and/or harassment from Protestant fellow officers.<ref name="serve">[http://www.serve.com/~pfc/survey Discrimination survey] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051122222421/http://www.serve.com/~pfc/survey/ |date=22 November 2005 }}; serve.com; accessed 19 February 2014.</ref>