The Crowned Harp: Policing Northern Ireland (reprint 2006, 2010)

The Crowned Harp provides a detailed analysis of policing in Northern Ireland. Tracing its history from 1922, Ellison and Smyth portray the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) as an organisation burdened by its past as a colonial police force. They analyse its perceived close relationship with unionism and why, for many nationalists, the RUC embodied the problem of the legitimacy of Northern Ireland, arguing that decisions made on the organisation, composition and ideology of policing in the early years of the state had consequences which went beyond the everyday practice of policing.

The authors provide an extended discussion of policing after the outbreak of civil unrest in 1969, ask why policing was cast in a paramilitary mould, and look at the use of special constabularies and the way in which the police dealt with social unrest which threatened to break down sectarian divisions. Examining the reorganisations of the RUC in the 1970s and 1980s, Ellison and Smyth focus on the various structural, legal and ideological components, the professionalisation of the force and the development of a coherent, if contradictory, ideology. The analysis of the RUC during this period sheds light on the problematic nature of using the police as a counter insurgency force in a divided society. Perceptions of the police, and the opinions of rank and file members are examined and an assessment is made of the various alternative models of policing, such as community policing and local control. This book offers important lessons about the nature of policing in divided societies.

'False, fleeting, perjured Clarence': pseudonymity and criminality in the writings of James Clarence Mangan

This article explores the significance of the adopted partial pseudonym “Clarence” to James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849), who is increasingly regarded as the most important Irish poet before W. B. Yeats. Tracing the literary history of “Clarence” from Shakespeare to Maria Edgeworth, this essay argues that the intriguing adoption exposes a preoccupation with themes of unlawful textual copying that is at the centre of Mangan’s imagination. These tropes assume singular significance when appreciated alongside Mangan’s profession as a scrivener. While literary criticism has separated Mangan the poet from Mangan the legal scribe, his hitherto under-explored assumption of “Clarence” provides a clue to their close and crucial connection. These themes of pseudonymity, copying, and criminality combine with particular resonance in his quasi-translation “The Man in the Cloak” (1838) to open up new perspectives on Mangan’s writing and its participation in wider European cultural contexts and concerns. The essay will conclude with a salient comparison of Mangan’s story with Nikolay Gogol’s seminal story “The Overcoat”, or, “The Cloak” (1842).