The Black & Tans and Auxiliaries
Images
‘Ireland in Schools’
Sutton Pilot Scheme
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A state of war exists and murder and
violence against the English are not
crimes until the alien invaders have left
the country.
An t-Óglach (IRA newspaper), 31 January 1919
Dan Breen was one of the men behind the Soloheadbeg ambush
in Co. Tipperary, 21 January 1919, in which
two Irish constables of the RIC were killed.
It marked the start of the Anglo-Irish war.
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IRA: Tipperary Flying Column
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IRA: Mayo Flying Column
These men ‘defied six hundred British troops at Tourmakeady’ according to An t-Óglach.
They lost one man and six shotguns in this famous battle.
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IRA: MidClare
Brigade
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‘Men of the West’
Sean Keating
1915
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‘Men of the South’, Sean Keating, 1920
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Distributed weekly to all units
of the IRA, delivered hidden
in flour sacks, furniture
packing cases and many
other disguises.
Mixing encouragement
with practical advice, it
often made up with
fighting words for a lack
of activity in the field.
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Black & Tans
Recruiting poster
1920
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Come out ye Black and Tans
Stephen Behan
I was born on a Dublin street, where the loyal drums do beat
And the loving English feet would walk all over us
And each and every night when me Da’ would come home tight
He’d invite the neighbours outside with this Chorus
Chorus:
Come out ye black and tans, come out and fight me like a man
Show us how you won your medals down in Flanders
Tell us how the IRA made you run like hell away
From the green and lovely lanes of Killashandra
Come tell us how you slew them old Arabs two by two
Like the Zulu’s that had spears and bows and arrows
How bravely you faced one with your sixteen pounder gun
And you frightened them poor natives to their morrow
Chorus
Come let us hear you tell how you slandered great Parnell
When you thought him well and truly persecuted
Where are the sneers and jeers that you loudly let us hear
When our leaders of sixteen were executed
The day is come fast and the times are here at last
As each English Shoneen he will run before us
And if there be a need, our kids will say ‘God speed’
With a bar or two of Stephen Behan’s Chorus
Chorus
Chorus
Allen, Larkin and O’Brien, you loudly called them swine
Robert Emmett who you hung and drew and quartered
High upon the scaffold high, you murdered Henry Joy
And our Croppy Boys in Wexford you did slaughter
Chorus
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First Black & Tans
being inspected by
an RIC officer at
Beggars Bush
barracks, Dublin,
25 March 1920
The mixture of police
and army uniforms
that occasioned their
name is not yet
evident.
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Soldiers with Black & Tans, posing for a press photograph.
The two men in dark uniforms are Black & Tans, reinforcements for an RIC barracks.
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Sir Hamar Greenwood, the Irish Chief Secretary, inspects the RIC.
The third constable from the right, still in khaki, is a Black & Tan, as is the man on his right, with the incomplete uniform.
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Black & Tans at Union Quay, Cork
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Auxiliaries being inspected by Sir Hamar Greenwood, the Irish Chief Secretary
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Auxiliaries on patrol
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Auxiliaries conducting a search at gunpoint.
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Crown forces in Dublin.
An unarmed constable of the Dublin Metropolitan Police stands between two Auxiliaries.
A soldier and a plain clothes man greeting a Black & Tan complete the picture.
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1. Whereas the spies and traitors known
as the Royal Irish Constabulary are
holding this country for the enemy,
and whereas said spies and
bloodhounds are conspiring with the
enemy to bomb and bayonet and
otherwise outrage a peaceful, lawabiding, and liberty-loving people;
2. Wherefore do we hereby solemnly
proclaim and suppress said spies and
traitors and do hereby solemnly warn
prospective recruits that they join the
R.I.C. at their own peril. All nations
are agreed as to the fate of traitors. It
has the sanction of God and man.
By order of the G.O.C.
Irish Republican Army
DROGHEDA BEWARE
If in the vicinity a policeman is shot, five of the
leading Sinn Feiners will be shot.
It is not coercion - - it is an eye for an eye.
We are not drink-maddened savages as we
have been described in the Dublin rags. We are
not out for loot.
We are inoffensive to women. We are as
humane as other Christians, but we have
restrained ourselves too long.
Are we to lie down while our comrades are
being shot down in cold blood by the corner boys
and ragamuffins of Ireland?
We say ‘Never’, and all the inquiries will not stop
our desire for revenge.
Stop the shooting of the police or we will lay low
every house that smells of Sinn Fein.
Remember Balbriggan.
(By Order)
Black and Tans
Irish Republican Army Order, 30 March 1920, five
days after the arrival of the first English recruits to
the Royal Irish Constabulary.
Black & Tans notice, September 1920
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Templemore, Tipperary.
This town was set on fire as a reprisal by both the Black & Tans, August 1920, after the assassination of a District Inspector, and
the military, October 1920, after an ambush. On the latter occasion the Black & Tans restrained the troops were publicly thanked
by the local council, whose offices they had burned two months earlier.
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IRA attack
Upper Church Street, Dublin 20
September 1920.
Volunteers of the Dublin Brigade of
the IRA attacked an unarmed military
ration party outside a bakery, killing one
soldier and mortally wounding
two others.
One of the assailants, Kevin Barry, an
eighteen-year-old medical student, was
arrested and the crowd immediately
converged on the scene. Kevin Barry was
later tried and hanged.
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‘The sack of Balbriggan’ by the Black & Tans, 20 September 1920.
It took place after the IRA attack on the military ration party in Dublin. Most of the damage was confined to one street.
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Death in Talbot Street, Dublin, 14 October 1920.
Top left: Lt Price, British intelligence officer, opens fire on Sean Treacey, one of the men behind Soloheadbeg.
Top right: A second later, he himself lay dead, shot by Treacy;
Bottom: In the ensuing hail of gunfire Treacy himself was killed along with another intelligence officer, Christian.
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RIC barracks, Trim, Co. Meath, destroyed by the IRA, 30 September 1920.
In a typical operation, the Meath Brigade rushed the barracks early on a Sunday morning when the majority
of the garrison was at mass. They surprised and overpowered the eight men left in the building,
wounding a sergeant severely. Having collected the arms and ammunition, they set the building on fire.
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Kilmichael Ambush, 28 November 1920.
Memorial to the three volunteers who died in the ambush of an Auxiliary convoy by the West Cork Flying Column,
led by Tom Barry, seen bottom right heading the survivors at the site in 1968.
Sixteen members of the Auxiliaries from ‘C’ company based at Macroom Castle, Co. Cork, were killed.
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The Boys of Kilmichael
While we honour in song and story,
The names of Pearse and McBride
Whose names are illumined in glory
With the martyrs who long since have died
Forget not the, boys of Kilmichael,
who feared not the might of the foe
The day that they marched into battle,
They laid all the Black and Tans low
The sun to the west it was sinking,
’Twas the eve of a cold winter’s day
When the Tans we were wearily waiting,
Rolled into the spot where they lay
And over the hill rang the echo,
The sound of each rifle and gun
The blaze of the lorries gave tidings that the boys
from Kilmichael had won
Chorus
So here’s to the boys of Kilmichael,
Those brave men so gallant and true
Who fought ‘neath the green flag of Erin,
To conquer the red, white and blue
Chorus
On the 28th day of November,
The Tans left the town of Macroom
They were armed in two Crossley tenders,
Which led them right to their doom
They were on their way to Dunmanway,
Who never expected to stall
When they met with the boys of the column,
Which made a clean sweep of them all
The lorries were ours before twilight
And high over Dunmanway town
Our banners in triumph were waving,
To show that the Tans had gone down
We gathered their rifles and bayonets,
And then left the glen so obscure
And never drew reins till we halted,
At the faraway camp of Glenure
Chorus
Chorus
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British administration under siege, winter 1920.
Barricade and barbed wire entanglements made Dublin Castle almost a beleaguered fortress.
Officials were unable to stir abroad without an armed escort.
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The ‘Cairo Gang’, so called because of their Middle Eastern
experience, some of them were among the 12 British intelligence
officers assassinated by Michael Collins’s ‘squad’ on the morning
of 21 November 1921.
The numbers refer to the names on the back, where Nos 1, 2 and
3 are marked as being Irish.
Neil Jordan’s depiction in the film Michael Collins of British
armoured cars bursting through the main gate of Croke Park
and firing their machine guns on the crowd
was criticised as pure invention.
In fact, armoured cars were involved but outside the ground
and, according to the official enquiry the one at the St James’s
Avenue exit fired fifty rounds.
‘Bloody Sunday’, 21 November 1920.
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Five hundred arrests were made within forty-eight hours of the murders of ‘Bloody Sunday’. Here an
Auxiliary cadet has picked up a couple of suspects in the Ministry of Labour offices in the Rotunda,
Dublin, and marches them through the streets at pistol point.
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The burning of Cork, 11 December 1920.
OneAuxiliary testified five days later: ‘I am at present in bed recovering from a severe chill contracted on Saturday night last
during the burning and looting of Cork in all of which I perforce took a reluctant part. We did it all right.’
One witness reported on the destruction of a jeweller’s shop: ‘The loot of Hilser’s continued throughout the night at different periods by police or Black & Tans. About
1.30 a.m. a party of them broke every bit of glass in Hilser’s and with the aid of flash-lamps which they used inside I could see them looting the entire shop. The party
consisted of men in civilian attire, Black and Tans or RIC and two soldiers. They had large kitbags which they filled with loot.’
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‘Behind the wire’.
Nearly 5,000 republicans were incarcerated in internment camps by the early summer of 1921.
‘Conditions were not severe. Many were glad to be out of the struggle.’
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Merry Christmas from Ireland, 1921.
Ernest R. Wilson, who served in the Navy in the First World War, joined the Auxiliaries in October 1920.
He was posted to the ‘C’ company of the ADRIC based at Macroom Castle, Co. Cork, the company involved in the famous IRA Kilmichael ambush
in which it lost sixteen men, and in April 1921 joined the ‘Q’ company, based at ports around Ireland.
He had an unremarkable career – no promotions, no disciplinary proceedings and no special duties – and left the ADRIC when it was disbanded in January 1922.
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Auxiliaries mixing with crowds after the Truce, 11 July 1921.
They are carrying nothing more lethal than a camera.
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The end of the affair?
The Irish Free State Army takes over Dublin Castle. A Free State officer makes arrangements with a British officer, while some of the
first recruits for the Free State Army wait and look round them with a wild surmise.
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