A View North Despite ills, RUC is here to stay

By Jack Holland

The current demands from Sinn Fein that the Royal Ulster Constabulary be disbanded are unlikely ever to be met.

There is one obvious reason why. The RUC has the support and confidence of the majority of the Northern Ireland population. Recent surveys confirm this. One showed that 76 percent of those polled were of the opinion that the police were doing a good job, which means that even if you factor in an understandable reluctance to admit to being anti-RUC, a considerable number of Catholics must also support the force.

Another reason why Sinn Fein’s demand will not be met is that the RUC has come out of the Troubles in a position of strength. It has not been defeated. In fact, if anything, the RUC is largely responsible for forcing the Provisional IRA to abandon violence as a means of achieving its aims.

A comparison with the case of the RUC’s predecessor, the Royal Irish Constabulary, is instructive.

The RIC was the first organized constabulary in the British Isles. Sir Robert Peel, appointed as the chief secretary for Ireland in 1812, established the force two years later. His experiment would lay the foundations of modern policing for the rest of the United Kingdom. The new force had to deal with widespread lawlessness, with secret society’s such as the Peep O’ Day Boys, the Rightboys, the Levellers, the Thrashers, the Carders, and the Whiteboys, the most feared of all, waging violent campaigns against landlords and each other with sometimes horrific brutality. (The Carders were so called because they liked to maul and slash the backs of their victims with the wire brushes used to card wool.) Peel’s experiment proved a success in Ireland, and by the time he left in 1818, the concept of a non-military constabulary was an accepted reality and the force was established throughout the country.

It became