Dublin Police

Before the ''Bill for Improving the Police in the District of the Dublin Metropolis'' was enacted in 1836, as London the Irish capital was ‘policed’ by watchmen. (Dukova, 2016, p.44) The city watchmen were colloquially known as Charlies and generally deemed inept and inadequate for the task. In fact, 'many of them ‘had in their earlier days been the domestic servants or retainers of the Corporation and of their friends. (Ibid) The Dublin of the mid-1780s was ravaged by a severe economic recession, which saw crime go up and further tested the watch system. The subsistence crisis, detrimental post-war effects on commerce following the American War of Independence and the inevitable destitution resulted in increased larceny rates, with Dublin’s hanged count coming close to London’s in this period. In addition to the poor harvests and already rising crime rates, Dublin saw a rise in protests with one of them culminating in a brief takeover of the local Parliament. In 1784, 'a proposal for a radically new policing system for Dublin, closely modelled on plans for a London force rejected a year earlier, was presented to Parliament by John FitzGibbon, at the time Attorney-General for Ireland (1783–89)'. The 1784 bill 'proposed an organisation of a force in Dublin comprising 440 Protestant men, armed and uniformed, with powers of entry and arrest who would patrol the streets day and night.’ (Dukova, 2016)

Two years later, the ‘Act for improving the police of the City of Dublin’ (48 Geo III) had set up the Metropolitan Police within the newly established Dublin Metropolitan District. The district covered the area inside the Circular Roads and inside the walls of the Phoenix Park— and far beyond the boundaries of the Dublin City Corporation. The Lord Lieutenant appointed three aldermen magistrates of the City of Dublin to be paid commissioners of police, vested with responsibility for preventing and detecting crime. The new police force was to be funded by an increased household tax and an income from licences. The organisation was responsible for issuing licences, as well as regulating street trade and the sale of alcohol.' (Dukova, 2016, p.46) In 1795, Camden's government repealed the Dublin Police Magistrates Act, and an unarmed parish night watch was restored.

Drawing on the Dublin experiment, Peel went on to draft a bill proposing an organised police force for London, which eventually lead to establishment offound the London Metropolitan Police.

'A detailed reading of the Dublin and London police acts show that the organisational groundwork, police powers and criminal responsibility were almost identical; 49 the rules and regulations that served as the foundation for the Dublin force were more or less the same. The conditions of entry, however, were markedly stricter. The physiometric parameters required a Dublin applicant to be at least 5 feet and 9 inches tall, and measure 36 inches across the chest.' (Dukova, 2016, p.51) The police district initially consisted of four divisions: A and B on the southern side of the river Liffy, and D and C on the northern. G Division, consisting of plain clothes detectives only, was organised in 1842. Later the district was expanded to include E and F divisions.

The 1880s saw rapid social and economic shifts in Dublin. The rise of Parnellism, the Land League and the Home Rule crises were the critical driving forces behind the marked radicalisation of society. 'The arrests of Parnell, Dillon, Sexton and other Land League leaders had led to ‘feverish excitement’ in the city as Harrel described it—the forces of disorder were daily becoming stronger, and unrest reached its zenith in October 1881 with a collision between the DMP and a political demonstration. What became known as the Sackville Street riot further eroded the relationship between the police and the public.' (Dukova, 2016, p.125)
Due to recurring financial constraints, Dublin police numbers did not keep up with the continuous expansion of the city fed by the rural migration as the Dublin Metropolitan area absorbed the new suburbs. (Dukova, 2016, p.100) Public unrest combined with inadequate pay and limited opportunities for promotion, resulted in growing resentment, disillusionment and eventually a police strike in 1882. On Friday 1 September, over 200 Dublin Metropolitan Police were dismissed for attending a meeting the evening before, which had been organised to voice their grievances. (Dukova, 2016, p.101) Two commissions were appointed to inquire into the circumstances of the grievances. Following the Inquiry, the 1883 Report recommended the fixed-term promotion system be adopted in Dublin, with maximum pay granted after seven to eight years of service, instead of existing 15. The economic recession coupled with the activities of the nationalist extremist group, the Invincibles, such as the Phoenix Park Murders, further stretched the e DMP resources. Dublin of the early 1880s witnessed weekly deaths and shootings in the city and the countryside.

In the 1890s, a wave of dynamite outrages shocked Dublin. In one of the more horrific explosions of the decade, Detective Sinnott sustained life-threatening injuries and subsequently died. (McCracken, 2009, p. 102) On Christmas Day 1892, Sinnott noticed a suspicious object next to the G Division head office at Exchange Court and picked it up. The package exploded in his hands, mutilating and killing him. (Dukova, 2016, p.145)

Labour-related violence plagued Dublin from February 1913 to February 1914. During August and September 1913 alone there were fifteen distinct and separate riots, a number of which resulted in large-scale clashes between workers and the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP). (Dukova, 2013)

Enquiries made in early September determined that there were 910 policemen on duty in Dublin in connection with the Lockout. The force consisted of DMP (nearly half the total strength) and 410 men from the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) drawn from all over the country. Between August and December 1913 some 656 people were arrested; nearly two thirds (416) were convicted and imprisoned. (Dukova, 2013)

However, due to their involvement in shadowing nationalists and collecting intelligence on their movements, for the next two decades the DMP detectives (G Division men) remained prime targets for the Irish Volunteers. Over the course of the Easter Week, three unarmed DMP constables were fatally wounded: James O’Brien 168B (DMP 9862) shot in the head by a Volunteer at the entrance to Upper Castle Yard; Michale Lahiff 125D (DMP 11047) shot three times in Stephens Green; and William Frith 174C (DMP 10175) shot through the head in a bedroom of Store Street police station by a sniper. (Dukova, 2016, p.135)