Page "Black and Tans" Paragraph 8

In January 1921, the British Labour Commission produced a report on the situation in Ireland which was highly critical of the government's security policy.

It said the government, in forming the Black and Tans, had " liberated forces which it is not at present able to dominate ".

However, since 29 December 1920, the British government had sanctioned " official reprisals " in Ireland — usually meaning burning property of IRA men and their suspected sympathisers.

Taken together with an increased emphasis on discipline in the RIC, this helped to curb the random atrocities the Black and Tans committed since March 1920 for the remainder of the war, if only because reprisals were now directed from above rather than being the result of a spontaneous desire for revenge.