Policing and Social Conflict in Northern Ireland
by Aogán Mulcahy and Graham Ellison
RUC and USC misconduct during this period was the subject of two highly
critical Royal Commissions, but it had a number of further major consequences.
First, as Ruane and Todd (1996: 127) suggest, it highlighted the fact that
in periods of crisis "many in the RUC, and virtually all the B Specials [USC] were defenders of the Protestant community first, defenders of the Protestant state second, and normal policemen third." Second, it was to
spread support for the CRM to the entire Catholic/nationalist community,
and to make reform of policing in particular, the civil rights issue (ó
Dochartaigh 1997). Third, in the face of ever-worsening violence, it was
to result in the British Government putting British troops onto the streets
of Northern Ireland in 1969, and eventually suspending the Northern Ireland
parliament indefinitely and introducing Direct Rule from Westminster in
1972. |
