Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State, 1920-1932: A Comparative Study
The critical difference between the two lay in legislative duration and the
manner in which they were enforced. The successors of the Royal Irish
Constabulary, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in Northern Ireland
and the Garda Síochána in the Irish Free State, were radically different
policing organisations. Whilst Cosgrave recognised the need for a neutral
and unarmed constabulary to assist with minority reconciliation, Craig
was determined to utilise the RUC, in particular the auxiliary Special
Constabulary – the “saviours of Ulster” (Lord Craigavon, 1928: 7) – unashamedly as “the coercive arm of the Unionist Party” (Farrell 1980: 87).
In Northern Ireland, it became established practice to enforce the law
“promptly and vigorously against Catholic and nationalist transgressors,
but with discretion against Protestants and unionists” (Buckland 2001:
213). Judicial partisanship existed in the Irish Free State in the 1920s,
but unlike in Northern Ireland, it remained only an expedient measure.
Nevertheless, action against anti-Treatyites by the Irish Free State Army
was, as Meehan concedes, “at times questionable” (2010: 37) and on
occasion little short of brutal, as the supposed upholders of law and justice simply reciprocated IRA bellicosity. More Irishmen were executed
by the Cosgrave Government in 1922 and 1923 than by the British between 1916 and 1921 (Ferriter 2004: 300). The cessation of the sectarian-charged “fit of hysteria” (Follis 1995: 4) that enveloped Belfast after
partition resulted in less ruthless methods of State coercion implemented
in Northern Ireland. Internment and marginalisation of the nationalist
renegades – in the eyes of the state fundamentally and irretrievably disloyal – was adopted instead of the summary executions which took place
in the South. Whereas Irish Free State-sponsored violence (notably the
suspension of habeas corpus) was intense but comparatively short-lived,
largely confined to the 1920s and 1930s, state-sanctioned oppression in
Northern Ireland was distinguished by its longevity and the degree to
which it intimidated an already aggrieved minority (Fitzpatrick 1998:
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