further powers of appointment were given
to the grand juries, and they commenced
enrolling additional constables. The system
then became fairly general throughout the
island.

CONSTABLES WITHOUT UNIFORM

Judged by any standard, the baronial con-
stables, or “Old Barnys” as they were
familiarly called, were not efficient. With-
out uniform and discipline, subject only to
the supervision of untrained chief constables,
they in many cases followed their former
civil occupations when outside the range of
supervision. Their duties gradually dimin-
ished to searching for stolen goods, and even
this simple act was carried out in a way
which today would have rendered them sub-
ject to penalties. It is recorded that a bar-
onial constable issued a warrant to search
for stolen lumber in one county, then loaned
it to a comrade in another county to search
for stolen turnips! According to contemp-
orary writers such irregularities were by no
means rare.

In the suppression of faction fights, a
peculiar diversion of the Irish peasantry
without which no fair or market was con-
sidered complete, the “Old Barnys” did not
distinguish themselves by untoward zeal.
Few in numbers, unorganized, they were no
match for the potheen fortified combatants.
Their tactics developed into a watchful wait-
ing—until the fight was over. Then they
appeared in time to arrest the exhausted

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survivors. At first a matter of amusement
to the law-abiding citizen, these fights caused
such damage to property and dislocation of
business that the government was forced to

The first Irish Constabulary, 1822.

—Courtesy Belfast Newsletter.

act. 1814 saw the “Peace Preservation Act,”
empowering the authorities to appoint a
chief constable with 50 sub-constables, or
ganized in troops, to any disturbed area,
Recruited for the most part from old soldiers
and commanded by military officers, this was
the first uniformed Irish police force. The
mounted section, called the “dragoon police,”
was brilliantly clad in blue jackets braided
with silk cord, red cuffs and collar, red and
gold lace girdle, a tall beaver cap with
feathers, and long scarlet cloaks reaching
over their horses’ tails. Each horse carried —
two men, for behind the rider on a small felt
pad sat a voltigeur, short rifle on thigh. The
martial appearance of these brilliant peace
officers quickly overawed the peasantry.
But now arose a new problem which the
Peace Preservation men were unable to solve,
After Waterloo, disbandment of the armies
flooded Ireland with old soldiers, trained to
arms and accustomed to freedom and
free-booting. The country was ill prepared
to absorb them. Failure of the wheat crop
and an epidemic of dysentery ruined what
ever foreign trade the island possessed. The
resulting unemployment brought a wave of
crime and disturbance from Malin Head to
Cape Clear. The Peace Preservation Force
had never obtained the confidence of the
people. A military force, whose existence
depended upon the continuation of condi
tions which it had been formed to remedy,
was not a serious factor in crime detection.

Once again the hand of the authorities

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