Sir, – I was very interested to read Diarmaid Ferriter's excellent recent article on the Black and Tans ("Black and Tans: 'Half-drunk, whole-mad' and one-fifth Irish", Analysis, January 4th). I just want to clarify a small statistical point that he draws from my work.
Prof Ferriter writes: “The IRA’s ability to choose and vary ambush sites left [the Black and Tans] physically and psychologically vulnerable, and casualty rates were high: Leeson gives figures of 42 per cent wounded and 24 per cent killed.”
It might not be clear to your readers that those figures refer only to those police who were involved in combat – not to the Black and Tans overall.
Casualty rates among police who were caught in ambushes were indeed high. In a few cases, as at Kilmichael in Co Cork, and at Dromkeen in Co Limerick, the IRA wiped out entire detachments of police. And in my book, I argue that these high casualties among police who were caught in ambushes incited their comrades to take reprisals.
But overall, the Black and Tans were much more likely to resign from the force than they were to be killed or wounded. Out of 1,153 Black and Tans who joined the Royal Irish Constabulary in October 1920, for example, only 21 were killed by the IRA, while at least 247 resigned. – Yours, etc,
DM LEESON,
Department of History,
Laurentian University,
Sudbury,
Canada.
Sir, – One of the photographs that accompanied Diarmaid Ferriter’s fine piece about the role of the terrorising Black and Tans in Ireland depicts “a suspected member of Sinn Féin being searched [by Auxiliaries] at gunpoint” at the site of an “ambush” at Ballymacelligott, Co Kerry in 1920. This photograph is not genuine; it was taken from a supposed film of the purported engagement (a piece of British propaganda), which reenacted the ambuscade – the so-called “Battle of Tralee”. This fake “action” took place not at Ballymacelligott, but incongruously enough, on Dalkey’s salubrious Vico Road in 1920. – Yours, etc,
PAUL DELANEY,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.