1933 Const John Ryan Shot Belfast City
1933 Const Charles Anderson Shot Belfast City
1940 H/Con Thomas Dempsey Shot Londonderry
1942 Const Patrick Murphy Shot Belfast City
1942 Const Thomas Forbes Shot Tyrone
1942 Const James Laird Shot Tyrone
1943 Const Patrick McCarthy Shot Belfast City
1956 Const John Scally Shot Fermanagh
1957 Const Thomas Gregg Shot Armagh
1957 Sgt Arthur Ovens Bomb Tyrone
1958 Const Henry Ross Bomb Armagh
1961 Const Norman Anderson Shot Fermanagh
1961 Const William Hunter Shot Armagh
1969 Const Victor Arbuckle Shot Belfast City
1970 Const Samuel Donaldson Bomb Armagh
1970 Const Robert Millar Car Bomb Armagh
1971 D/Insp Cecil Patterson Shot Belfast City
1971 Const Robert Buckley Shot Belfast City
1971 Const Robert Leslie Shot Tyrone
1971 Const Cecil Cunningham Shot Belfast City
1971 Const John Haslett Shot Belfast City
1971 Sgt Ronald Dodd Shot Antrim
1971 Insp Alfred Devlin Bomb Belfast City
1971 D/Con Stanley Corry Shot Belfast City
1971 D/Con William Russell Shot Belfast City
1971 Sgt Dermot Hurley Shot Belfast City
1971 Const Thomas Moore Shot Belfast City
1972 R/Con Raymond Denham Shot Belfast City
1972 Sgt Peter Gilgunn Shot Londonderry
1972 Const David Montgomery Shot Londonderry City
1972 Const Raymond Carroll Shot Belfast City
1972 Sgt Thomas Morrow Shot Armagh
1972 Const William Logan Shot Tyrone
1972 Const Ernest McAllister Bomb Belfast City
1972 Const Bernard O'Neill Bomb Belfast City
1972 Const Samuel Houston Shot Down
1972 Const Robert Laverty Shot Belfast City
1972 R/Con Robert Gibson Bomb Belfast City
1972 Const Andrew Harron Shot Belfast City
1972 R/Con Joseph Calvin Car Bomb Fermanagh
1972 Const Robert Keys Rocket Fermanagh
1972 Const James Nixon Shot Belfast City
1972 Const George Chambers Shot Armagh
1973 Sgt David Dorsett Car Bomb Antrim
1973 R/Con Henry Sandford Landmine Tyrone
1973 Const Mervyn Wilson Car Bomb Londonderry
1973 Const Charles Morrison Shot Tyrone
1973 Const William Wylie Shot Antrim
1973 Const Ronald Macauley Shot Antrim
1973 Const David Purvis Shot Fermanagh
1973 R/Con William MvElveen Shot Armagh
1973 R/Con William Campbell Shot Belfast City
1973 D/Con John Doherty Shot Donegal
1973 Const Robert Megaw Shot Armagh
1973 D/Con George Rolston Car Bomb Down
1973 Const Michael Logue Shot Belfast City
1974 R/Con Jogn Rodgers Shot Antrim
1974 R/Con William Baggley Shot Londonderry
1974 Const Thomas McClinton Shot Belfast City
1974 Const Cyril Wilson Shot Armagh
1974 Sgt Frederick Robinson Car Bomb Antrim
1974 Const Thomas McCall Shot Armagh
1974 Const Thomas Bell Shot Belfast City
1974 Const John Ross Shot Belfast City
1974 Const John Forsythe Bomb Armagh
1974 Sgt Daniel O'Connor Shot Belfast City
1974 D/Insp Peter Flanagan Shot Tyrone
1974 Insp William Elliot Shot Antrim
1974 R/Con Arthur Henderson Bomb Tyrone
1974 Const Robert Forde Bomb Armagh
1974 Const David McNeice Shot Armagh
1975 Sgt George Coulter Shot Tyrone
1975 WRC Mildren Harrison Bomb Down
1975 Const Paul Gray Shot Londonderry
1975 Const Noel Davis Car Bomb Londonderry
1975 D/Con Andrew Johnston Bomb Armagh
1975 Const Robert McPherson Shot Londonderry
1975 D/Con David Love Bomb Londonderry
1975 R/Con Andrew Baird Bomb Armagh
1975 R/Con Joseph Clements Landmine Tyrone
1975 R/Con Samuel Clarke Shot Tyrone
1975 Sgt Patrick Maxwell Shot Tyrone
1976 R/Con William Evans Shot Londonderry
1976 Insp George Bell Bomb Belfast City
1976 D/Con Neville Cummings Bomb Belfast City
1976 Sgt James Blakely Shot Belfast City
1976 Insp William Murtagh Shot Belfast City
1976 R/Con William Hamer Shot Londonderry
1976 R/Con William Crooks Shot Tyrone
1976 R/Con Thomas Evans Bomb Fermanagh
1976 Sgt James Hunter Shot Down
1976 R/Con Francis Kettles Bomb Fermanagh
1976 Sgt Henry Keys Shot Fermanagh
1976 R/Con Kenneth Nelosn Shot Tyrone
1976 Const John

It was against this lawless and uncertain background that the new Government of Northern Ireland assumed responsibility for law and order. Under Section 60 of the Government of Ireland Act the R.I.C. in the six counties making up Northern Ireland were placed under its authority. On the 31st January Dawson Bates, the first Minister of Home Affairs, appointed a committee of inquiry on police organization in Northern Ireland. They were asked to advise on any alterations in the existing police necessary for the formation of a new force (i.e. recruitment and conditions of service, its composition, strength and cost).

An interim report was published on the 28th March 1922, the first official report of the new Parliament, and it was subsequently accepted by the Northern Ireland Government. On the 29th April 1922 King George V granted that the force could be called the Royal Ulster Constabulary. In May the Parliament of Northern Ireland passed the 1922 Constabulary Act and the R.U.C. officially came into existence on 1st June. The Headquarters of the force was established at Atlantic Buildings, Waring Street, in the centre of Belfast, and Charles Wickham became the first Inspector General. The uniform and insignia of the R.U.C. remained essentially the same as the R.I.C. From the beginning it had a dual role, unique among United Kingdom police forces, of providing a normal law enforcement police service while protecting Northern Ireland from the terrorist activities of outlawed groups. For personal protection its members were armed (a continual requirement since the formation of the constabulary in 1822).

The R.U.C. was to be a 3000 strong force for the whole of the province. It had the support of the Ulster Special Constabulary, a volunteer body of part-time auxiliary police who were given uniforms and training. The R.U.C.'s senior officer, the Inspector General, was appointed by the Governor of Northern Ireland and was responsible to the Minister of Home Affairs in the Northern Ireland Government for the maintenance of law and order.

Neither the newly established Irish Free State nor the state of Northern Ireland had an auspicious beginning. The polarized political climate in Northern Ireland resulted in violence from both sides of the political and religious divide. The lawlessness that affected Northern Ireland in the period of the early twenties, and the problems it caused for the police, are indicated in a police report drawn up by District Inspector R. R. Spears in February 1923. Referring to the situation in Belfast after July 1921 he states:

For twelve months after that, the city was in a state of turmoil. The I.R.A. was responsible for an enormous number of murders, bombings, shootings and incendiary fires. The work of the police against them was, however, greatly hampered by the fact that the rough element on the Protestant side entered thoroughly into the disturbances, met murder with murder and adopted in many respects the tactics of the rebel gunmen. In the endeavour to cope simultaneously with the warring factions the police efforts were practically nullified. They were quite unable to rely on the restraint of one party while they dealt with the other.

By the mid-twenties the situation had thankfully calmed down. Indeed the closing years of the decade were so notably peaceful that in January 1928 the most serious issue exercising Dr. J.C. Loughbridge, the magistrate at Whiteabbey Petty Sessions, was the prevalence of courting couples in the suburbs parking their cars on the wrong side of the road.
The 1920's and '30's were years of economic austerity. Many of Northern Ireland's traditional industries, notably linen and shipbuilding, were in recession. This contributed to the already high level of unemployment. Serious rioting broke out in 1932 in Belfast in protest at the inadequate nature of Poor Law relief. In their protest against governmental parsimony Catholic and Protestant working class area

By the early years of this century the Royal Irish Constabulary had become an integral and widely accepted part of Irish life. The turbulent years that followed, leading up to partition and immediately after, witnessed considerable suffering on the part of many of those directly involved, not least policemen and their families.

The Home Rule campaign had steadily gained momentum during the 19th century, notably under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell. The first two Home Rule Bills, however, in 1886 and 1893, were defeated in Westminster, preventing their realization. By the time of the third Home Rule Bill in 1912 the Lords could only delay the legislation for a period of two years, despite the consistent opposition of the Irish Unionists. With the threat of Home Rule looming, Ulster Unionist opposition, under the leadership of Sir Edward Carson and James Craig, stiffened even further. A 'Solemn League and Covenant' was signed by over 400,000 people on 28th September, 1912 pledging opposition, and the Ulster Volunteer Force was founded in January 1913. This private army was a disciplined, trained and armed force, which by the end of 1914 numbered 90,000 men. A similar opposed organization dedicated to the Home Rule cause, the National Volunteers, was raised in the South and numbered around 180,000 men. (A smaller militant group, between 3,000 and 10,000 men, called the Irish Volunteers, later seceded from the main body in September 1914.) When the outbreak of World War 1 intervened in this volatile and increasingly polarized political situation, it inadvertently created the circumstances for further dramatic developments.

In 1905 Sinn Fein was formed by Arthur Griffith, with the aim of nothing less than full independence from Britain. Also at this time the militant organization, the Irish Republican Brotherhood was revived. Working on the premise that 'England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity', a number of the I.R.B. formed a secret military council towards the end of 1915; its objective, a rising. The radicalization of politics and ultimately the escalation of political violence in the years following the 1916 Rising created an increasingly difficult situation for the police, as they sought to maintain a degree of stability amidst the rapidly shifting political sands.

The old Home Rule politicians were heavily defeated by a Sinn Fein landslide in the General Election of 1918. The newly elected Sinn Fein members refused to take their seats in Westminster and instead, on 21st January 1919, declared themselves to be the first Dail Eireann ('Parliament of Ireland'). On the same day at a remote place called Soloheadbeg, three miles from Tipperary, members of the Irish Volunteers ambushed two R.I.C. Constables escorting a cart-load of gelignite to a quarry. The two constables, O'Connell and O'Donnell, were shot dead by the gun-men, who escaped with their weapons and explosives. (The Irish Volunteers were reconstituted in the Spring of 1919 as the Irish Republican Army.)

Michael Collins, the I.R.A. leader, created teams called 'flying columns' to carry out a new type of hit and run guerilla warfare against the Crown forces. Throughout 1919 and 1920 the campaign, the brunt of which was borne by the R.I.C., continued with ruthless efficiency. A nationwide boycott of police was begun, often enforced by intimidation, and an alternative system of police and courts sprang up, orchestrated by the I.R.A. and Sinn Fein. In response to this situation and the growing number of police resignations the government raised a force of men on mainland Britain, mainly ex-soldiers, to act as police reinforcements. As there was no immediately available supply of police uniforms they wore a mixture of police and army uniform with police caps and belts - hence their nickname, the 'Black-and-Tans' (the name of a well-known pack of hounds in County Limerick). The government raised another force also, the Auxiliary Division of the co