The Black & Tans: British Police and Auxiliaries in the Irish War of Independence by D. M. Leeson (review)

The cycle of political violence begun on Easter Sunday 1916 which culminated in the creation of an independent Irish state in 1922 can still stir strong emotions and whilst memoires, histories and novels emphasising a Nationalist perspective abound; relatively little exists giving alternative perspectives. Even less has been published dealing specifically with the infamous ‘Black and Tans’ and ‘Auxies’ whose activities, despite the passage of ninety-three years, have come to rival arguments over British culpability for the Great Famine (1845-52) as “…the most emotive subject in modern Irish history…”(p.157). In seeking write about these controversial groups and scrape away some of the patina of myth, even after the passage of so much time, Leeson inevitably strays onto dangerous ground. It is, however, a foray to be welcomed.

So, who were the eponymous ‘Black and Tans’? Such is their infamy in parts of Ireland that even one of the names used for this period is ‘The Tan War’ and the colours of the ribbon of the campaign medal issued to the conflict’s IRA veterans were inspired by them. Were they really the violent scrapings of English gaols; traumatised flotsam of the Great War; foreign freebooters wreaking genocidal havoc across Ireland or does the truth lie elsewhere? By going back to primary sources, Leeson tries to find out.

Ultimately, two things hamper his investigation. The first is that in reality, there was no such organisation as the ‘Black and Tans’, instead the term was coined by an unknown Limerick wag to describe newly enlisted policemen at a time when kit shortages reduced the RIC to making up deficiencies by issuing surplus Army clothing. The second is that nationalist folklore conflates the memory of these men with the ex-officers of the Auxiliary Division—the ‘Auxies’—who joined as Temporary Cadets on the princely sum of £1 per day, plus allowances. Whilst the men remembered as ‘Tans’ were, in reality men who had joined the RIC on short term contracts as Temporary Constables working alongside regular policemen the ‘Auxies’ were altogether different. Never fully integrated into the RIC, this expensive and well paid force was raised to “…wage a war to the death…” (p. 214) against the IRA’s guerrillas.

As very little has been published that deals specifically with either group Leeson’s book inevitably adds to the historiography of the conflict; drawing together information that appears elsewhere as well as original research and making it available to the general reader. By focusing on the men who joined the RIC in October 1920, at the height of the War of Independence, Leeson is able to shed light on the sort of men they were. Unsurprisingly, the majority had seen service in the recently ended world war; most were also working class men in their twenties making them almost a decade or so younger than the average Irish career policeman.

Whilst the RIC had never been an exclusively Irish force it did not actively recruited outside of Ireland until January 1920 as a response to losses caused by the IRA. Undoubtedly, the influx of thousands of ‘British’ recruits had an impact on the nature of, what had been, an overwhelmingly Irish Catholic constabulary but focusing on what Leeson terms the ‘British’ police he not only sidesteps the internecine nature of the conflict but also ignores one of the most fascinating, and indeed controversial aspects of both the ‘Tans’ and ‘Auxies’. Many of them were Irish.

Leeson offers no explanation of why men like Cully Tynan O’Mahoney—father of Irish comedian Dave Allen, doyen of 1930s Dublin’s literary society and sometime managing editor of the Irish Times—joined the Auxiliaries, glossing over the fact the only ‘Tan’ to be executed by the British for murder was also a Dubliner, William Mitchell (Pp.199-200). They were not alone and by 1921 almost a quarter of those who joined...