Black and Tans

Nickname of a special auxiliary force of the Royal Irish Constabulary formed from British ex-soldiers on 2 January 1920 and in action in Ireland March 1920-December 1921. They were employed by the British government to combat the killing of policemen by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the military wing of the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein government, during the Anglo-Irish War, or War of Independence (1919-21). The name derives from the colours of their improvised khaki and black uniforms, and was also the name of a famous pack of hounds.

The Black and Tans acquired a reputation for violent reprisals against the civilian population after IRA attacks. The peak of Black and Tan retribution is traditionally Bloody Sunday, 1920. On 21 November, after the IRA assassinated 13 men in Dublin, mainly British intelligence officers, the Black and Tans fired on a crowd at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park, killing 12 onlookers.

In part the Black and Tans were needed as a back-up law enforcement agency because many Irish police had resigned following the triumph of Sinn Fein in the 1918 general election, their subsequent declaration of Irish independence, and the escalation of war with Britain in 1919. British Liberal prime minister David Lloyd George agreed to the setting up of the Black and Tans in 1920 as, at that time, he still believed Britain could regain control over Ireland.

Recruitment took place among ex-soldiers of World War I, who had returned to find unemployment in Britain. The Black and Tans found it impossible to defeat or control the guerrilla warfare of the IRA, and resorted to reprisal attacks on local citizens for IRA actions, such as the incident at Croke Park on Bloody Sunday. The Black and Tans became the hated representatives of the British government in the eyes of the Irish people. Their attacks on innocent people who lived near the scene of IRA actions simply encouraged increased support for the IRA.

The Black and Tans proved incapable of defeating the IRA, and they were finally withdrawn from Ireland as part of the Anglo-Irish Treaty signed between Britain and the Irish in London in December 1921.