Sir,—With regard to your editorial ‘The Decade of Centenaries bites back’ (HI 32.1, Jan./Feb. 2024), there is another link between the Decade of Centenaries and what was happening in Palestine at the time.
During the Treaty negotiations in 1921, as well as the ‘big’ issues, Michael Collins was also involved in the detail that taking control of the country required. For example, the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police would be disbanded, but who would pay? It was agreed that the Free State would assume responsibility for them and that a new police force would be established but that pensions and other legacy issues would be shared between the two governments. On the issue of the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries there would be no such accommodation, and Churchill and his colleagues readily understood this. What to do with this ‘gallant’ band, then? They were offered the equivalent of redundancy or automatic enrolment in the newly formed ‘gendarmerie for Palestine’.—Yours etc.,
PHELIM J. BRADY
Guildford