A Force Like No Other: The Last Shift: The final selection of real stories from the RUC men and women who policed the Troubles

A Force Like No Other #3

by Colin Breen

In this final part to his bestselling A Force Like No Other series, Colin Breen brings together more compelling insider stories from RUC officers who served during the Troubles.

‘A most powerful and unique insight into the world’s most dangerous job in policing in the 1970s and ’80s.’  Henry McDonald, Observer and Guardian

‘This book of real RUC insider anecdotes … has, of course, the best possible sources – the cops themselves.’  Hugh Jordan, Sunday World

‘ A Force Like No Other recalls the horrors of the Troubles but also some of the funnier stories of everyday life as a cop.’  Stephen Gordon, Sunday Life

Genres: Nonfiction, History

308 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 9, 2021

Reviews

[Chris Wray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, Colin Breen has compiled an entertaining and moving collection of memories, anecdotes and testimony from men and women who served as police officers in the RUC. As Breen himself describes it, the three books together provide a “layered and broad-ranging history of what it was like to police a divided community on a day-to-day basis, and the danger that this work entailed.” This third volume is less dark than the second in the series and has more of the black humour you would typically associate with the armed forces and emergency services. Some of the events that the officers recall are ones that I am directly familiar with (such as the murder of Kieran Hegarty in Strabane), and others I only know about second-hand (such as the assassination of Lord Mountbatten and the Narrow Water bombings). In both cases, the direct testimony of the policemen and women involved provides an immediacy that is quite affecting. The record of the RUC during the Troubles will likely always be controversial and disputed, but what is clear from it is that the officers who policed the Troubles saw themselves as standing on the side of law and order in a deeply divided society that had descended into political violence, and which threatened to descend yet further into anarchy.

The fact that a descent into the abyss did not happen is significant, and makes me reflect on the accusation of collusion, or at least co-operation, between state forces and paramilitaries. There was undoubtedly a lot less rigorous record keeping and accountability in policing generally in the past, and this is not unique to Northern Ireland. Again, Special Branch-type operations are, by definition, murky and ambiguous, and we should be cautious about assuming that either informants or handlers had the full knowledge we have with hindsight. Poor decisions were undoubtedly made, as fallible police officers had to react in the moment, with imperfect and often contradictory information, and respond to rapidly developing situations. They were also operating in an environment of conflict, with the inevitable hardening of attitudes and sensibilities that comes with that. Finally, there were undoubted instances of blatant criminality, whether the perpetrators felt it was justified and part of a greater good or not. So, while collusion and other acts of criminality were certainly perpetrated by police officers, the idea that it was systematic strikes me as implausible. It also requires the acceptance of the conclusion that such collusion was remarkably ineffective.

In the final analysis, the fact that the rule of law was basically upheld throughout the Troubles, and that Northern Ireland did not succumb to the levels of violence and ethnic cleansing seen in the Balkans, is a fitting tribute to the men and women who served in the RUC. Crimes were investigated and suspects were arrested, tried and imprisoned by an independent judiciary. One other aspect of life in the RUC that comes up repeatedly is the hostility faced by officers and their families from the Loyalist community (particularly around flashpoints like the Anglo-Irish Agreement and Drumcree). Many police officers had to relocate because of the threat of murder by Republicans, but many also had to relocate because of the threat from embittered Loyalists. The RUC may have been sacrificed as politically expedient (perhaps even a necessity) on the path to peace in the Province, but that fact is in keeping with the resilience and sacrifice they demonstrated throughout the Troubles.

So many of the stories Breen records are memorable, but I close with one very Irish anecdote about a pub bombing: “This guy had ambled into the pub, set a bomb on the counter and announced they had fifteen minutes to get out. We arrived and started to clear the entire premises. We had just done so when I saw this old boy sauntering across the road and realised he was headed towards the door of the pub with the intention of going in. I shouted, ‘No! No!’ and ran forward towards him. He looked at me and said, ‘What’s wrong, son?’ I was just explaining to him that he couldn’t go in there because there was a… BOOM! Every window in the building came out and showered us with glass. The doors came out and we were blown off our feet, I didn’t even get to say ‘bomb’. ‘Sure, it’s gone off now, son,’ he said. ‘Come on, we’ll go in and get a pint.’”

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like others in series a great collection of memories