The exhibition examines the policing of County Limerick during the later Irish revolutionary period. This was then the province of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) which, unlike the local and purely civilian forces of Great Britain, was a centralized, semi-military force.
The exhibition takes as its focus the RIC’s reinforcement by the Black and Tans and the RIC Auxiliary Division in 1920 as the War of Independence gained pace. It documents their central role in the British counterinsurgency – both their armed confrontations with the local IRA and their reprisals against civilian targets in the city and county; their departure from Limerick in spring 1922; their reputation in the historiography of the Irish Revolution; and the short and long-term legacies of their deployment in Ireland.
