Dublin's first boys in blue

The Dublin Metropolitan Police, A Short History and Genealogical Guide. By Jim Herlihy. Four Courts Press. 288 pp. hbk £39.38, pbk £19.65

The Dublin Metropolitan Police, A Complete Alphabetical list of Officers and Men, 1836-1925. By Jim Herlihy. Four Courts Press. 272 pp, £44.89

Some everyday reminders still survive of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, the force that patrolled the streets and early suburbs of the city for almost 90 years before its integration, in 1925, into the Garda Siochana.

Helmeted constables' heads in granite yet stare sternly across the entrances to Pearse Street more accurately College Street Garda Station. If a 19th-century DMP man were to return today, he would instantly recognise the old divisional boundaries, virtually unchanged since the days of Undersecretary Drummond. And he would find the ordinance still effective which allocated the tallest men to the "B" division - College Street, the Castle and the long-vanished stations at Lad Lane and Clarendon Street.

There are throwbacks to the DMP in spoken Dublin English. Dublin detectives are "D/Os" - detective officers - rather than detective gardai, in station argot. Elderly citizens in certain genteel districts yet speak of the "pleece" rather than the "guards". In some of the hardier areas, their contemporaries may still refer disparagingly to the "bobbies". (Younger generations, of course, have found more virulent and colourful epithets for the Garda.)

More than 12,500 men served in the DMP between foundation in 1836 and the passing into law in 1925 of the Police Forces Amalgamation Act.

Drawn overwhelmingly from the small farmer class across Ireland, a career in the DMP was especially attractive to young men from the counties surrounding Dublin - Kildare, Wicklow and, to a lesser extent, Meath.

Although, as the author reveals, the DMP attracted 156 foreign-born members, including one Russian, one Tasmanian, two Indians and four French. What stories may lie behind these fascinating figures, asks Prof Fergus A. D'Arcy, who writes the introduction? Indeed.

By the 183Os, the system of a permanent, disciplined police force was fully established throughout rural Ireland. Sir Robert Peel ensured the passing of the 1822 Constabulary Act. It established the Irish Constabulary - after 1867 the Royal Irish Constabulary - as a gendarmerie, tightly controlled from Dublin Castle. Initially, it operated on a regional command basis, but in 1839 the central headquarters was established at the Phoenix Park Depot.

Paradoxically, the writ of the Irish Constabulary did not run in Dublin city. An armed gendarmerie was considered acceptable for rural Ireland. But Englishmen of the age - and Dublin was an extension of the English administrative mindset - were resistant to such a concept in their cities. Dublin was policed by what the author describes with some understatement as an "expensive and inadequate" system of untrained, often part-time constables and watchmen.

Peel's police forces in Britain developed as a necessary instrument of social control as industry displaced agriculture, and the population grew and became concentrated in large urban areas.

The London Metropolitan Police, established in 1829 - with Irish barrister Richard Mayne as first joint commissioner - had proven a signal success, and the model had been gradually extended into the boroughs and provinces of England and Wales. The "new police" were drawn from the lower middle-classes or the better-educated working classes. Promotion to all but the very top posts of the Chief Constables - was through the ranks. They did not generally carry firearms, and their objective was to police the community with its own consent.

Dublin's Metropolitan Police was to be rooted distinctly, if sometimes imperfectly, in this genre of policing. Thus the DMP constable patrolling in Victorian Rathmines carried only a baton and wore a blue uniform with Roman-style helmet, He might aspire to any rank but Commissioner, and he lived as a civilian. But his RIC counterpart in adjoining, rural Rathfarnham had his revolver and his Martini carbine. He wore a dark bottle-green uniform, modelled on that of the Rifle Brigade. And, until the early years of the 20th century, he generally lived in barracks and could scarcely entertain hope of promotion beyond the non-commissioned ranks.

The DMP was an integral part of Dublin life through the remainder of the 19th century and into the early years of the 20th century. History has judged it harshly for its role in helping to suppress the great labour uprising of 1913 and because of the activities of the G-division, the forerunner of the Special Branch, in the period 1916 to 1922. Yet the decision to end the force's separate existence was not on account of any historical baggage. It was a pragmatic decision by the Free State government to amalgamate it with the Garda Siochana. The aim was to improve efficiency, rationalise costs and - importantly - to allow the DMP's armed detective branch to operate throughout rural Ireland in support of the unarmed Garda.

In 1925 the DMP training depot at Kevin Street was closed, and the last commissioner, Maj Gen W.R.E. Murphy, moved from Dublin Castle to become deputy commissioner of the Garda Siochana under Eoin O'Duffy. Dublin Castle remained the police headquarters for the capital, housing the chief superintendent and staff offices of the newly-created Dublin Metropolitan Division of the Garda. G division, as such, ceased to exist, and its members formed the nucleus of the Garda's (Crime) Special Branch, which was dispersed throughout the Irish Free State, starting in Co Leitrim.

The author of these two volumes, Jim Herlihy, has already contributed significantly to Irish policing history through his work on the RIC List.

The first of these volumes is, in effect, a sister publication, setting out the names and service details of every member of the DMP from foundation to amalgamation. It will be an invaluable source of reference for historians, professional genealogists and for individuals who are interested in tracing their DMP ancestors.

The complementary volume, the Short History and Genealogical Guide, draws skilfully on a combination of earlier published work the and hitherto unexplored documentary sources. It sets out succinctly the social, historical and political context in which the DMP operated. It describes the work of the early commissioners in putting in place the network of divisions and station-houses, and it offers much interesting detail on the routine duties of a 19th-century, urban police force.

Both books carry a series of extremely useful appendices, setting out inter alia, the breakdown of DMP recruits by country of birth and county of origin within Ireland; the DMP's divisional structure with stations and barracks; lists of members killed on duty; recipients of the King's Medal for Police Duty; members enlisted, killed and wounded in the Great War, etc.

The Short History offers a useful tour d 'horizon of life as it was in the DMP, including training, promotion and work in the more specialised sections, including the Mounted Troop, the DMP Band, the Carnage Office and the G division, or detective branch.

Herlihy and Four Courts Press make another significant contribution to Irish police history with these publications. The material is presented in an easy, narrative style which is as pleasant to read as the content is informative.

Conor Brady is editor of The Irish Times. He is author of Guardians of the Peace, a history of the Garda Siochana