Major Changes in the RIC
Introduction from Chronology
The Police Adviser appoints a Head of Intelligence. He also appoints RIC Divisional
Commissioners.
More Detail
1. Intelligence
The Police Adviser, Hugh Tudor, appoints Colonel Ormonde de L’Epée
Winter as the RIC’s Director of Intelligence and as his Deputy. Winter sets
about rebuilding the intelligence system within the RIC and DMP. (For a short background on Winter – see Hart
(2002), pg 7.)
As well as engaging in a number of ‘cloak and dagger’ schemes, Winter
sets up a London Bureau. There was a separate intelligence unit in London under
Basil Thomson who was Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and
director of home intelligence at New Scotland Yard in London (see
May-1919/2). He was responsible for up
to sixty British agents operating in Dublin, most drawn from ethnic Irish
backgrounds in Britain. (Alan Bell had
worked with Thomson – See Mar-26-20/1.)
When Winter took over intelligence, Thomson ceded control of
intelligence gathering in Ireland to him.
Winter subsequently set up a London Bureau to train spies and send them
to Ireland. It was initially under
Charles Tegart then by a BA officer called Jeffries and then by Major Cecil
Aylmer Cameron. It sent some sixty
agents to Ireland over the eight or nine months that it lasted. One of these agents was Digby Hardy – see
Sep-16-20/2. Winter later claimed that
his network of agents did good work but the BA, in its assessment, “took a dim
view of their effectiveness” (McMahon (2008), pg 39.
Probably the most effective scheme that Winter introduced was his Raids
Bureau. Between August 1920 and the
Truce in July 1921, 6,311 raids were carried out by Crown Forces in Dublin
alone. His idea was that all information
captured would be collated and it would produce epitomes which summarised
captured information. The Raids Bureau
had undoubtedly some major successes (for example, the capture of Mulcahy’s
papers – See Nov-19-20/3). However, it was still criticised by the BA
for being too slow and cumbersome - see Hart (2002).
In addition to Winter’s intelligence unit within the RIC & DMP,
there was also the BA’s Special Branch (which was its intelligence unit) – see
May-1920/4 below. In December, Winter
took over the BA this unit and renamed it D Branch – see Dec-1920/6. He also set up local centres around the country.
2.
RIC Divisional Commissioners
Tudor also starts to appoint RIC Divisional Commissioners around this
time. Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Smyth is
appointed Divisional Commissioner for Munster Division 2 and Brigadier General
Cyril Prescott-Decie is appointed as a Divisional Commissioner for Munster
Division 1. Brigadier General W. H.
Hacket-Pain is appointed Divisional Commissioner for Ulster; J. Wilbond is
appointed Divisional Commissioner for Connaught and Capt H. E. Dickinson is
appointed Divisional Commissioner for Leinster.
(Sheehan (2009) says the latter three were appointed on March 25th.) Later P.A. Marrinan took over from Dickinson.
Sheehan says that in September (Richard) Cruise took over as Divisional
Commissioner for Galway and Mayo but Price says November (see Nov-10-20/2).
Leeson says that divisional commissioners were “special police officials
intermediate between county inspectors and RIC headquarters. There were five divisional commissioners at
first … but by November there were nine.
Each divisional commissioner commanded the police forces in an area,
covering three to six counties … Their powers and responsibilities were not
clearly defined”. Townshend says that some divisional commissioners “became
virtually independent warlords, scarcely connected with either their military
counterparts or with the police authorities in Dublin”.
3. Winter’s Views
Winter was later to write “The Irishman, without any insult being
intended, somewhat resembles a dog, and understands firm treatment, but, like a
dog, he cannot understand being cajoled with a piece of sugar in one hand
whilst he receives a beating from a stick in the other” (Walsh (2008), pg
165). Comment: To compare a
human to a dog and then say “without any insult being intended” takes a particularly
extreme form of emotional obtuseness bordering on the alexithymic.