Ken Loach's film The Wind that Shakes the Barley highlights the need to challenge the Black and Tan stereotype, writes Frank Bouchier-Hayes
Ken Loach's film on the Irish war of independence and civil war will no doubt generate much debate about the merits of political violence. The release of The Wind that Shakes the Barley will tap into the vigorous discussion which preceded and followed the recent military parade in Dublin to mark the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising.
Understandably, much will be made of the savagery of the crown forces during the 1920-1921 period. Perhaps the old hoary chestnut about the infamous Black and Tans being composed of convicted criminals will appear again. Three years ago, the Bureau of Military History files documenting the experiences of IRA volunteers and others during the 1913-1921 period were finally released to the public.
Not surprisingly, no such systematic body of information exists in Britain to help us to understand the motivations and experiences of British men and women who chose to confront the IRA at the time. The Black and Tans - or tans for short - and their sister body, the Auxiliaries, quickly entered Irish folklore as hideous symbols of British tyranny.
Many historians have ignored these two much hated groups by either focusing on the activities of the IRA or on the complex nature of the struggle for supremacy between British and Irish political figures that culminated in the signing of the treaty in December 1921. Recently, however, those who chose to serve Britain in Ireland by bolstering the much-depleted ranks of the Royal Irish Constabulary have become the subject of serious academic research.
Unlike famous Irish commentators such as Píaras Beaslaí and Dorothy McArdle, who saw the Black and Tans as having been "largely drawn from the criminal classes" or as "men of low mentality whose more primitive instincts had been aroused by the war", a young Canadian historian named David Leeson finds the average Black and Tan to be a small, young, unmarried Protestant working-class man with an unblemished army record whose lack of skills meant that any job involving good pay couldn't be ignored.
The tans were employed as police constables whose name derived from the fact that they were initially clad in military khaki and dark green police uniform (it has also been suggested that the name was given to them in Limerick after the famous Scarteen pack of foxhounds).
Members of the Auxiliary Division of the Irish police were given the rank of temporary cadets and arrived in Ireland several months later. Although shortage of police uniform is traditionally given as the reason for the mixed attire of the tans, one old constable, mistaking dark green for black, offered another explanation.
"You need two suits of uniform," he said, "because you could get mucked up in one and need a change, but the boys, as soon as they got the khaki suit along with the black one they immediately switched the trousers, wore the khaki trousers with the black tunic and vice versa."
The tans were actually mostly composed of ex-soldiers whereas the auxiliaries consisted of ex-officers.
In practice, however, the two groups were treated much differently. While the tans were billeted in police barracks, the auxiliaries were organised in military style companies. As far as the distinctive appearance of the latter body is concerned, a Scotsman named Bill Munro later recalled that "some of us were influenced by Western films and wore our revolvers in holsters low slung on the thigh which looked very dashing but which were the cause of quite a number of shot-off toes - as the enthusiasts attempted to emulate the cowboys of Texas".
Considering the fine early June weather we enjoyed recently, it is worth quoting what a British policewoman employed as a searcher in Ireland wrote in June 1921 about summer police patrols seeking elusive republican flying columns. "The long-continued spell of hot, dry weather makes these rough roads unbearable, the dust covering us all, especially those seated in the second or third Crossleys, who have layers of white on their eyelids, noses and chins, which makes travelling quickly by road none too pleasant, and gives us all a most curious and dirty appearance."
Traditional Irish weather was, however, a more common source of complaint. "You see," recalled another old policeman, "an open tender with a central seat both facing outwards and no cover on you, you sit in the back for a hundred miles and you're soaked through. It runs down, you see, and goes right through. There were some army fellows who showed me that if you wanted an inside shirt or long johns dried, you wrung it out well and put it under your sheet on the bed and lay on it. It took three nights to dry it."
David Leeson's doctoral thesis, The Black and Tans: British Police in the First Irish War, 1920-21, suggests that it was the tense situation in which he found himself in Ireland rather than his natural disposition which determined the tan member's often brutal course of action. The suggestion that the tans were ordinary men "who nonetheless did sometimes behave in savage ways" and that the auxiliaries "behaved with even greater licence" seems eminently reasonable.
However, Lloyd George's extraordinary statement in April 1921 that "the general record of patience and forbearance displayed, by the Auxiliaries as well as the ordinary Constabulary, will command not the condemnation, but the admiration of posterity" must surely rank as one of the silliest ever committed to paper.
Nevertheless, it seems grossly unfair to exclusively blame the British for the terrible violence that ensued in Ireland following the 1918 general election. Leeson concludes: "It was both sides' unwillingness to meet each other half way, to consider the compromise of dominion status - a compromise that seems natural, even obvious to a Canadian, like myself - that created the conditions in which black-and-tannery flourished."
Sadly, the civil war that followed continued along much the same lines as the earlier conflict.
• Frank Bouchier-Hayes is a librarian, local historian and freelance writer.