A Dedicated Policemen
PSNI-OPSEC | 12.01.2003 23:43
In a quite corner of Drumcree churchyard there is a simple headstone bearing the legend 'William Thomas McKnight, died May 5, 1922.' His death stunned the local community.
On the left is the funeral cortege of William Thomas McKnight, murder by the IRA near cookstown in a 6 hour gun battle. I have always knew of Thomas because I had been left his Military Medal which was held by my grandmother. It is now in the RUC museum. He was awarded this in the 1st World War in which a member of my family died that others may live, free from fear and intimadation. But that is another story, for another day perhaps. Thomas was shot and wounded in the stomach and died 5-6 days after the gun battle which included at least 20-30 IRA gunmen in County Tyrone.
"Thomas was one of the first RIC men shot dead by the IRA - Behind the coffin walking up the 'Hill' are members of the RIC who were based in Carleton Street Orange Hall, Portadown in the 1920s."
What made the death of Thomas Knight more poignant was the the fact he had survived the dreadful trench warfare of the Western Front, and had been awarded the Military Medal for gallantry. He served with the 121st Field Company of the Royal Engineers in the 36th Ulster division. His funeral to Drumcree Churchyard was one of the largest in Portadown for many a year. The mourners included members of Seagoe Orange Lodge No 26 of which he was a member. The cortege was led by Parkmount Flute Band with muffled drums. Three members of Parliament attended the funeral - Sir William Allen DSO, Major Graham Shillington nad Robert McCabe. A contingent of Special Constablary form Cookstown, where Special Constable Thomas McKnight had been serving, acted as pall-bearers.In the above picture the coffin is being brought up the "hill" at Drumcree Parish Church in Portadown. The story of the incident is in the "Portadown Times" Archives.
In this picture Thomas McKnights coffin is being carried though Drumcree graveyard by unarmed members the UVF men whom with Thomas served with in the First Great World War, to his place of burial.
"Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me" Psalm23 v4.
"lest we forget"
William Thomas McKnight was a young man still in his 20s when I.R.A. bullets claimed his life in an ambush near the town of Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, in 1922. Still single, he lived with his parents in Mary Street, Portadown, and was a member of the recently formed Ulster Special Constabulary. Although still a young man, like many of his generation he had experienced the horrors of the Western Front and had been awarded the Military Medal for his gallantry while serving with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
Returning to Portadown, McKnight had worked for a short spell with the local council, but he had responded to the appeal for men to join the new police force in Northern Ireland. How ironical and sad that a young man who had shown such courage in the trenches of the Great War should die not so many miles from his home in Portadown. But that was typical of the sacrifice of many men in the period from 1919 to 1922, and at least William Thomas McKnight was honoured by the people of his town. Thousands turned out for his funeral to Drumcree churchyard, headed by the band of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the mourners included his fellow brethren of Seagoe L.O.L. No.26.
Far too many other policemen who died in the service of the Crown in Ireland during that terrible period did not receive the same deserved recognition as Special Constable McKnight, and the men of the North of Ireland who served in the Royal Irish Constabulary and the 'A' and 'B' Specials which replaced it until the new Royal Ulster Constabulary had been firmly established. Now, ironically, 80 years later, the Royal Ulster Constabulary is to be replaced by a new service, with unknown consequences for Northern Ireland and its people.
The R.U.C., its Reserve, and the long disbanded Ulster Special Constabulary lost many fine officers in the service of the Crown. But at least their sacrifice is remembered on memorials dotted throughout Northern Ireland. The same cannot be said of their brave predecessors, the 493 men of the Royal Irish Constabulary murdered during the period 1919 to 1922.
There is no memorial to these gallant men in Ireland, either north or south, and in fact the only memorials in these islands to the R.I.C. are small plaques in St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral, London. That is a glaring omission, because the price paid by the men of the Royal Irish Constabulary was a very high one, not just in terms of lives lost - and that was considerable - but in the suffering and hardship of their families.
But at last the gallantry of these men has been recognised in the publication of a book which is a fitting testimony to their courage. Called simply 'Police Casualties in Ireland 1919-1922' this book tells the story of how each of these 493 officers and men were killed. The book is published by Mercier Press at £15, and the author, Richard Abbott, has performed a great service, not just to the memory of the R.I.C. men who lost their lives, but to the people of this island in general, because the failure to tell the story of what happened to this fine Force in the last years of its existence left a great void which has now been filled.
Richard Abbott has not dramatised the story in his very fine book, but that adds to its potency. It is a book of rivetting impact, and it is a terrible story, one of vile murder by those who cut down the policemen, and of the betrayal of the R.I.C. by the British Government. When the I.R.A. launched its campaign in 1919 to drive the British from Ireland, it realised that to have any chance of success it had to destroy the Royal Irish Constabulary. This magnificent police force, which was roughly four-fifths Roman Catholic and one-fifth Protestant in membership, had served the Crown in exemplary fashion and until the rise of militant republicanism in the years before the Great War, it had kept the peace with widespread support from the people it served.
If the I.R.A. was to end British rule it had to smash the police force which was the eyes and ears of the population, and to do that it had to produce a reign of terror and make it impossible for the R.I.C. to operate as a normal police force. From the first two officers were murdered at Soloheadbeg in 1919, the tactics were to be ruthless in the extreme. No mercy was shown to men, many of them mature officers who had served in small towns and villages throughout Ireland. They were gunned down in the streets, walking from church, or in busy Dublin streets, and many in their own homes in front of their families. Ambushes became a daily occurrence and many murder bids failed because the men were alert and able to fight back.
But the terror intensified, police baracks were burned down by the I.R.A., and the rule of law effectively ceased to operate in large parts of Ireland. Officers did resign in sizeable numbers, mainly because of concerns for their families, and there were a few who betrayed their comrades by serving the I.R.A. and providing them with information. But the vast majority remained loyal to Britain to the end. Their courage was of the highest order.
There were some reprisals, especially after particularly brutal murders of popular police officers, but far less than might have been expected given the ruthlessness of the gunmen and bombers who stalked their victims from behind walls or on hills overlooking roads on which they travelled. As Irishmen were forced to resign, the British Goverment replaced them with recruits from the mainland, most of them former soldiers.
Because of a shortage of uniforms in the early days many of these men wore a mixture of police and army uniforms and were nicknamed Black and Tans. The British also formed an elite force consisting of former army officers who had won many medals for gallantry in the Great War, and they were called Auxiliaries - a force both feared and hated by the I.R.A.
Three years of murder caused heavy casualties in the police, but by 1921 the Army and police were getting on top of the murder gangs and several key spies who had served Michael Collins in Dublin Castle were exposed. The I.R.A. lost a decisive battle in Dublin at the Customs House where most of its key personnel in the capital were captured or killed. Things were going badly for the I.R.A. and the British premier Lloyd George talked tough, with threats of bringing in a huge army to crush the rebels. The I.R.A., aware of how it was losing the war, opened up talks with the British, culminating in the Treaty in July 1921. Right up to the eve of the Treaty the I.R.A. continued to murder police officers, and when the republican army split over the signing of the Treaty, the anti-Agreement faction started to kill policemen again.
The establishment of the new Northern Ireland State led to an invasion of Belfast and parts of the North by units of the I.R.A. This led to murders of R.I.C. men in Belfast, and when the Force was disbanded and replaced by the Special Constabulary, the killings continued.
It's a sad but thought-provoking book and it has lessons for the present day.
The destruction of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police was one of the greatest crimes committed on this island. And the end of British rule and the setting up of the Irish Free State in 26 counties brought no relief.
In the months after the end of British rule many ex-R.I.C. men were murdered in their homes. Emigration proved the only answer for a large proportion of the officers, and a sizeable number joined the new Royal Ulster Constabulary, while others moved to many parts of the world, including Palestine, to continue to serve the British Empire. Reading Richard Abbott's fine book, one is struck by the number of murdered R.I.C. men who had served in the 1914-18 war. A large proportion were farmers, and they came from every corner of Ireland, or in the case of the Black and Tans from all parts of England and Scotland.
It's shameful that no fitting memorial was ever erected in this country to acknowledge the sacrifice of so many good men whose only crime was loyalty to a nation which showed little or no gratitude. It is surely not too late to make good that omission and salute the memory of the gallant men and the Force in which they served.
On the left is the funeral cortege of William Thomas McKnight, murder by the IRA near cookstown in a 6 hour gun battle. I have always knew of Thomas because I had been left his Military Medal which was held by my grandmother. It is now in the RUC museum. He was awarded this in the 1st World War in which a member of my family died that others may live, free from fear and intimadation. But that is another story, for another day perhaps. Thomas was shot and wounded in the stomach and died 5-6 days after the gun battle which included at least 20-30 IRA gunmen in County Tyrone.
"Thomas was one of the first RIC men shot dead by the IRA - Behind the coffin walking up the 'Hill' are members of the RIC who were based in Carleton Street Orange Hall, Portadown in the 1920s."
What made the death of Thomas Knight more poignant was the the fact he had survived the dreadful trench warfare of the Western Front, and had been awarded the Military Medal for gallantry. He served with the 121st Field Company of the Royal Engineers in the 36th Ulster division. His funeral to Drumcree Churchyard was one of the largest in Portadown for many a year. The mourners included members of Seagoe Orange Lodge No 26 of which he was a member. The cortege was led by Parkmount Flute Band with muffled drums. Three members of Parliament attended the funeral - Sir William Allen DSO, Major Graham Shillington nad Robert McCabe. A contingent of Special Constablary form Cookstown, where Special Constable Thomas McKnight had been serving, acted as pall-bearers.In the above picture the coffin is being brought up the "hill" at Drumcree Parish Church in Portadown. The story of the incident is in the "Portadown Times" Archives.
In this picture Thomas McKnights coffin is being carried though Drumcree graveyard by unarmed members the UVF men whom with Thomas served with in the First Great World War, to his place of burial.
"Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me" Psalm23 v4.
"lest we forget"
William Thomas McKnight was a young man still in his 20s when I.R.A. bullets claimed his life in an ambush near the town of Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, in 1922. Still single, he lived with his parents in Mary Street, Portadown, and was a member of the recently formed Ulster Special Constabulary. Although still a young man, like many of his generation he had experienced the horrors of the Western Front and had been awarded the Military Medal for his gallantry while serving with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
Returning to Portadown, McKnight had worked for a short spell with the local council, but he had responded to the appeal for men to join the new police force in Northern Ireland. How ironical and sad that a young man who had shown such courage in the trenches of the Great War should die not so many miles from his home in Portadown. But that was typical of the sacrifice of many men in the period from 1919 to 1922, and at least William Thomas McKnight was honoured by the people of his town. Thousands turned out for his funeral to Drumcree churchyard, headed by the band of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the mourners included his fellow brethren of Seagoe L.O.L. No.26.
Far too many other policemen who died in the service of the Crown in Ireland during that terrible period did not receive the same deserved recognition as Special Constable McKnight, and the men of the North of Ireland who served in the Royal Irish Constabulary and the 'A' and 'B' Specials which replaced it until the new Royal Ulster Constabulary had been firmly established. Now, ironically, 80 years later, the Royal Ulster Constabulary is to be replaced by a new service, with unknown consequences for Northern Ireland and its people.
The R.U.C., its Reserve, and the long disbanded Ulster Special Constabulary lost many fine officers in the service of the Crown. But at least their sacrifice is remembered on memorials dotted throughout Northern Ireland. The same cannot be said of their brave predecessors, the 493 men of the Royal Irish Constabulary murdered during the period 1919 to 1922.
There is no memorial to these gallant men in Ireland, either north or south, and in fact the only memorials in these islands to the R.I.C. are small plaques in St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral, London. That is a glaring omission, because the price paid by the men of the Royal Irish Constabulary was a very high one, not just in terms of lives lost - and that was considerable - but in the suffering and hardship of their families.
But at last the gallantry of these men has been recognised in the publication of a book which is a fitting testimony to their courage. Called simply 'Police Casualties in Ireland 1919-1922' this book tells the story of how each of these 493 officers and men were killed. The book is published by Mercier Press at £15, and the author, Richard Abbott, has performed a great service, not just to the memory of the R.I.C. men who lost their lives, but to the people of this island in general, because the failure to tell the story of what happened to this fine Force in the last years of its existence left a great void which has now been filled.
Richard Abbott has not dramatised the story in his very fine book, but that adds to its potency. It is a book of rivetting impact, and it is a terrible story, one of vile murder by those who cut down the policemen, and of the betrayal of the R.I.C. by the British Government. When the I.R.A. launched its campaign in 1919 to drive the British from Ireland, it realised that to have any chance of success it had to destroy the Royal Irish Constabulary. This magnificent police force, which was roughly four-fifths Roman Catholic and one-fifth Protestant in membership, had served the Crown in exemplary fashion and until the rise of militant republicanism in the years before the Great War, it had kept the peace with widespread support from the people it served.
If the I.R.A. was to end British rule it had to smash the police force which was the eyes and ears of the population, and to do that it had to produce a reign of terror and make it impossible for the R.I.C. to operate as a normal police force. From the first two officers were murdered at Soloheadbeg in 1919, the tactics were to be ruthless in the extreme. No mercy was shown to men, many of them mature officers who had served in small towns and villages throughout Ireland. They were gunned down in the streets, walking from church, or in busy Dublin streets, and many in their own homes in front of their families. Ambushes became a daily occurrence and many murder bids failed because the men were alert and able to fight back.
But the terror intensified, police baracks were burned down by the I.R.A., and the rule of law effectively ceased to operate in large parts of Ireland. Officers did resign in sizeable numbers, mainly because of concerns for their families, and there were a few who betrayed their comrades by serving the I.R.A. and providing them with information. But the vast majority remained loyal to Britain to the end. Their courage was of the highest order.
There were some reprisals, especially after particularly brutal murders of popular police officers, but far less than might have been expected given the ruthlessness of the gunmen and bombers who stalked their victims from behind walls or on hills overlooking roads on which they travelled. As Irishmen were forced to resign, the British Goverment replaced them with recruits from the mainland, most of them former soldiers.
Because of a shortage of uniforms in the early days many of these men wore a mixture of police and army uniforms and were nicknamed Black and Tans. The British also formed an elite force consisting of former army officers who had won many medals for gallantry in the Great War, and they were called Auxiliaries - a force both feared and hated by the I.R.A.
Three years of murder caused heavy casualties in the police, but by 1921 the Army and police were getting on top of the murder gangs and several key spies who had served Michael Collins in Dublin Castle were exposed. The I.R.A. lost a decisive battle in Dublin at the Customs House where most of its key personnel in the capital were captured or killed. Things were going badly for the I.R.A. and the British premier Lloyd George talked tough, with threats of bringing in a huge army to crush the rebels. The I.R.A., aware of how it was losing the war, opened up talks with the British, culminating in the Treaty in July 1921. Right up to the eve of the Treaty the I.R.A. continued to murder police officers, and when the republican army split over the signing of the Treaty, the anti-Agreement faction started to kill policemen again.
The establishment of the new Northern Ireland State led to an invasion of Belfast and parts of the North by units of the I.R.A. This led to murders of R.I.C. men in Belfast, and when the Force was disbanded and replaced by the Special Constabulary, the killings continued.
It's a sad but thought-provoking book and it has lessons for the present day.
The destruction of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police was one of the greatest crimes committed on this island. And the end of British rule and the setting up of the Irish Free State in 26 counties brought no relief.
In the months after the end of British rule many ex-R.I.C. men were murdered in their homes. Emigration proved the only answer for a large proportion of the officers, and a sizeable number joined the new Royal Ulster Constabulary, while others moved to many parts of the world, including Palestine, to continue to serve the British Empire. Reading Richard Abbott's fine book, one is struck by the number of murdered R.I.C. men who had served in the 1914-18 war. A large proportion were farmers, and they came from every corner of Ireland, or in the case of the Black and Tans from all parts of England and Scotland.
It's shameful that no fitting memorial was ever erected in this country to acknowledge the sacrifice of so many good men whose only crime was loyalty to a nation which showed little or no gratitude. It is surely not too late to make good that omission and salute the memory of the gallant men and the Force in which they served.
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