The police forces of Northern Ireland - history, perception and problems

In the conflict between Catholic Nationalists and Protestant Loyalists in Northern Ireland the security forces have played and continue to play a controversial and crucial role. Hailed by Loyalists as defenders of Ulster, condemned by Nationalists for their biased, sectarian practices, the police forces were often not mediators between both sides but combatants in the ‘Troubles’ who fueled the conflict. This paper intends to look at the history of policing in Northern Ireland from 1920 to 2001, focusing on the early years in order to show a path-dependency of the ‘Troubles’. It will substantiate that the conflict between the police forces and the population during the ‘Troubles’, beginning in 1968, was not a singular, isolated event that can be examined without its historical context. But rather, the seed of this conflict had been planted fifty years prior, when Northern Ireland’s police forces were established.
Chapter 3 looks at the public perception surrounding policing and will examine the differences and similarities of opinion between Catholics and Protestants. Chapter 4 deals with the internal problems facing policing. Furthermore, it will question Seamus Mallon’s, a former deputy leader of the SDLP and Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister from 1998 to 2001, statement that the RUC was “97% Protestant and 100% unionist” (Royal Ulster Constabulary 2006).