This first account of the Irish constabularies is a major contribution to Irish historical studies. Throughout the century in question policing stood at the perilous intersection of politics, religion and the relationship between Britain and Ireland. Donal JO'Sullivan has over three decades researched this history, much of the essential material of which had been obscured by continuing political sensitivities.
From the Constabulary Act of 1822 and the organisation of the County Constabularythe story moves through the difficult and turbulent decades of the Famine, 1848, the Belfast Riots and the Fenian rising, encompassing the birth of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Land WarIn the later years of the nineteenth century the emphasis is on more routine police workwith the period of the growth of Irish nationalism in the early twentieth century being a peaceful time for the RIC. But as Sinn Féin and the Volunteers grew in strength, attitudes to the RIC changed and it came under sustained attack during the force's final difficult years leading to disbandment.