A History of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and its Colonial Legacy by Anastasia Dukova

Author:Anastasia Dukova
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK, London

The vice regal commission appointed to inquire into the conduct of the police during the riots found that the DMP men did precisely that and discharged their duties with courage and patience. The total number of constables injured in the riots exceeded 200.

The press coverage of the day provides conflicting evidence, however. Reports quoted witnesses whose testimonials swore of unprovoked violence from the police armed with batons, indiscriminately charging at the crowds. Likewise, during a cross-examination, two witnesses swore on oath that they saw the police attack Liberty Hall, the Head Quarters of the Irish Transport Workers’ Union, without any provocation. The Liberty Hall was set up in the long-abandoned Northumberland Hotel beside the Custom House in 1912. 73 A witness, Charles McDay stated that he saw the police rush across and clear the square in front of the ‘Hall’. He then saw other police come down from O’Connell Bridge and on running towards Eden Quay he witnessed James Nolan being struck by 224C with a baton on the side of the head near the ear. James Nolan was one of the two men killed during the riots. Nolan sustained a fracture of the skull, which resulted in his death at Jervis Street Hospital on the morning of Sunday 31 August, the day after he sustained his injury during the night riot. 74 The post-mortem examination found that the injury was caused by the blow of a baton. Accounts printed in the Irish Times stated that the police retaliation was in response to the showers of stones that rained on them from the windows of the surrounding buildings. Stones, bricks and bottles were thrown by the crowd. The riot in this locality went on for a long time, and while it lasted the throwing of stones and bottles was almost continuous and, according to the inquiry into these disturbances, many injuries were inflicted.

The DMP constables, working men themselves, were placed in a precarious situation. The orders to provide protection to William Martin Murphy’s Tramway Company in running their cars notwithstanding, the strike created greater resentment against the police. Jim Larkin’s rhetoric was to the effect that a non-unionist worker, or a scab, is a traitor to his class, a deserter who goes over to the enemy in time of war to fight against his own people. The Liverpool-born James Larkin, was ‘a man of rare energy and tactical guile and a public speaker whose magnetism was reminiscent of John Mitchel [a co-leading Confederate with William Smith O’Brien, and a key player in the success of the Nation and United Irishman]’. 75 Even though the policemen were inadvertently made into accomplices in this ‘war’, an overwhelming majority of the DMP recruits were of the labouring stock themselves. Many of them enlisted to secure modest but stable incomes for their families.

Undoubtedly, these men were financially more secure than the unskilled labouring classes. Still, the policemen’s wages were significantly lower than the wages of the skilled artisans. Moreover, in contrast to the general

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