The RUC and army arrested 342 Catholics, but key Provisional Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) members had been tipped off and 104 of those arrested were released when it emerged they had no paramilitary connections.

At its peak the force had around 8, 500 officers with a further 4, 500 who were members of the RUC Reserve.

During the Troubles, over 300 members of the RUC were killed and almost 9, 000 injured in paramilitary assassinations or attacks, mostly by the Provisional IRA, which made the RUC ( in 1983 ) the most dangerous police force in the world of which to be a member.

The RUC was a ' reserved occupation ', i. e. the police force was deemed essential to the war effort on the Home Front and its members were forbidden to leave to join the other services.

Initially the army was welcomed by Catholic nationalists in preference to the RUC and in particular the B Specials ( who were stood down on 30 April 1970 ).

The RUC Reserve was formed as an auxiliary police force, and all military-style duties were handed over to the newly formed Ulster Defence Regiment, which was under military command and replaced the B Specials.

Starting in late 1982, a number of IRA and Irish National Liberation Army ( INLA ) men were shot dead by the RUC.

At least 150 RUC families were forced to move as a result.

While the RUC refused to give any details on how many officers were members of the Order, thirty-nine RUC officers are listed on the Order's Roll of Honour ( of Orangemen killed in the conflict ).

RUC ranks, duties, conditions of service and pay were generally in line with those of police forces in Great Britain.

According to official sources, 314 officers were killed and over 9000 were injured during the history of the RUC.

However, according to the CAIN project at the University of Ulster, 301 active RUC officers were killed and 18 ex-RUC officers, which would total 319 fatalities during the Troubles.

Twenty former RUC officers were killed by acts of terrorism after leaving the service while two members of the Police Authority and three of its employees were killed between 1972 and 1994.

The two highest-ranking RUC officers to be killed in the Troubles were Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Robert Buchanan when they were ambushed by the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade outside Jonesborough, County Armagh, on 20 March 1989.

Two further killings of Catholics were claimed by the LVF, but the RUC believed that UDA / UFF volunteers were responsible.

Detective Chief Inspector Jimmy Nesbitt, head of the CID Murder Squad in Tennent Street RUC base and the man charged with tracking down the Butchers, was in no doubt that the murders of Crossen, Quinn and Rice were the work of the same people.

Two were members of the security forces and two were civilians who were killed by a bomb as they drove past Limavady RUC station.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland ( over the summer the RUC had undergone a name change ), supported by the British Army, were by then better prepared and managed to force a path through the protesters.

E4A was supported by the Headquarters Mobile Support Unit ( now part of Special Operations Branch ) but essentially a counter-terrorist team for the RUC.

Following attacks on civil rights marchers by Protestant loyalists, as well as members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ), anger and violence mounted.

While initially welcomed by the Catholics as a neutral force compared to the RUC, relations between the nationalists and the Army soon deteriorated.

When it was deployed on duty in Northern Ireland, the British Army was welcomed by Roman Catholics as a neutral force there to protect them from Protestant mobs, the Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) and the B-Specials.

In the following twenty years, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and other smaller republican groups such as the Irish National Liberation Army ( INLA ) mounted an armed campaign against the British, by which they meant the RUC, the British Army, the Ulster Defence Regiment ( UDR ) of the British Army ( and, according to their critics, the Protestant and unionist establishment ).

Following the introduction of internment in 1971 " Operation Demetrius " was implemented by the Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) and British Army with raids for 452 suspects on 9 August 1971.

The RVUs themselves are largely decided by a private group of 29 ( mostly specialist ) physicians — the American Medical Association's Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee ( RUC ).

The study lead by Dr. Miriam J. Laugesen, of Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and colleagues at UCLA and the University of Illinois, shows that for services provided between 1994 and 2010, CMS agreed with 87. 4 % of the recommendations of the committee, known as RUC or the Relative Value Update Committee.

The RUC was renamed and reformed, as is provided for by the final version of the Police ( Northern Ireland ) Act 2000.

The RUC was continually accused by sections of the minority nationalist community and human rights groups of one-sided policing and discrimination, as well as for its collusion with loyalist paramilitaries ( see below ).

Conversely, the RUC was praised by other security forces as one of the most professional policing operations in the world.

The RUC was limited by statute to a 3, 000-strong force.

As a result, representation of Catholics in the RUC never exceeded 20 % and, by the 1960s, it had a Catholic representation of 12 %.

Post-war policies brought about the gradual improvement in the lot of the RUC, interrupted only by a return to hostilities by the IRA.

The B Specials, proved highly controversial to some, with the unit seen by some nationalists as more anti-Catholic and anti-nationalist than the RUC, which, unlike the B Specials, did attract some Catholic recruits.

This led to accusations of a shoot-to-kill policy by the RUC.

The direction and control of the RUC was in the hands in the Chief Constable, who was assisted by two Deputy Chief Constables and nine Assistant Chief Constables.

The Newry mortar attack by the Provisional IRA on an RUC station in 1985, which killed nine officers, resulted in the highest number of deaths inflicted on the RUC in one incident.

* 1985 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.

** Members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) damage property and assault occupants in the Bogside in Derry.

* February 28 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing 9 officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.

In 1942, he participated in an IRA ambush on a Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) patrol but was himself shot, arrested and sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000.

On 29 April 1922, King George V granted to the force the name Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ).

IRA attacks on Catholics who joined the RUC, and the perception that the police force was " a Protestant force for a Protestant people " meant that Catholic participation in the Royal Ulster Constabulary always remained disproportionally small in terms of the Catholic percentage of the overall Northern Irish population.

Between 1922 and 1969 the position of Inspector-General of the RUC was held by five officers, the last being Sir Arthur Young, who was seconded for a year from the City of London Police to implement the Hunt Report and disarm the police and disband the Ulster Special Constabulary (' B ' Specials ).

At the age of 15, Wright, whilst attending Markethill High School, took a part-time job as a farm labourer where he came into contact with a number of staunchly unionist and loyalist farmers who served with the Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) Reserve or the Ulster Defence Regiment ( UDR ).

Recently it has emerged from the Police Ombudsman that senior North Belfast UVF member and Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) Special Branch informant Mark Haddock has been involved in drug dealing.

The march passed off after the decision was made by the Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) to allow it and Paisley ended the march hand in hand with David Trimble who appeared to perform a " Victory Jig ".

Strabane suffered extensive damage during the Troubles, from the early 1970s and continuing throughout much of the 1990s, with bombings and shootings commonplace: Irish Republican paramilitary groups, mainly the Provisional Irish Republican Army, regularly attacked the town's British army and Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) bases.

Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) detectives believe his unit killed up to 40 people in this period.

Although almost two – thirds of these weapons were later recovered by the Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ), they enabled the UDA to launch an assassination campaign against their perceived enemies.

The government forces involved include the Force Research Unit of the British army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ), in particular its Special Branch.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) and British Army only effectively cleared a small number of areas before the bombs went off.

The George Cross has, on the express instruction of the Sovereign, been awarded twice on a collective basis, to the island of Malta and the Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ).