Neville Francis Fitzgerald Chamberlain - Royal Irish Constabulary

Royal Irish Constabulary

In 1900 Chamberlain was appointed Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), the police force for the whole of Ireland except Dublin. The force, which was armed, was under the direct control of the Irish Administration in Dublin Castle. It was responsible for intelligence gathering as well as maintaining order, and was seen as the "eyes and ears" of the government. He formally resigned from the Army on 1 November 1901. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) during a royal visit to Ireland in August 1903, Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in 1911, Knight of Grace in the Venerable Order of Saint John in April 1914, and was awarded the King's Police Medal in the 1915 New Year Honours. Chamberlain's years in the RIC coincided with the rise of a number of political, cultural and sporting organizations with the common aim of asserting Ireland's separateness from England, which were often collectively referred to as Sinn Féin, culminating in the formation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913. In reports to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Augustine Birrell, and the Under-Secretary, Sir Matthew Nathan, Chamberlain warned that the Volunteers were preparing to stage an insurrection and proclaim Irish independence. However, in April 1916 when Nathan showed him a letter from the army commander in the south of Ireland telling of an expected landing of arms on the south-west coast and a rising planned for Easter, they were both 'doubtful whether there was any foundation for the rumour'. The Easter Rising began on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916 and lasted for six days, ending only when much of O'Connell Street had been destroyed by artillery fire. Although the Royal Commission on the 1916 Rebellion (the Hardinge commission) cleared the RIC of any blame for the Rising, Chamberlain was eventually forced to resign following continued criticism of the force's intelligence handling.