Veterans and Drivers

Temporary Constables and Veterans, were attached to the Auxiliary Division.  My calculation below shows that there were about 30 Temp Constables allocated to each ADRIC Company. They were separate from the Black & Tan Constables who were part of the Regular RIC

• They provided the Drivers, Fitters, Mechanics, Armourers, Cooks and Canteen staff needed, for the ADRIC to function efficiently. 
• They were recruited for a years service from Veteran ex-soldiers of 35 years of age and upwards. They must have relaxed this requirement as many were born after 1890   
• They were paid 10s. a day, with a gratuity of 25 Pounds on completion of a years service.      
• Boot allowance of 1s. a week was also paid, along with a rent allowance of 40 Pounds a year. and separation allowance of 2s. a night to married men.     
• These Temporary Constables were distributed among the different Auxiliary Companies stationed in different locations. It seems to have avaraged abot 30 Temp Constables per ADRIC Company      
• The Veterans Division had its headquarters at Gormanstown Depot, alongside but separate from the R.I.C. Training Depot.     
• For the Auxiliary Division, arms and stores were supplied by the Ordnance Department of the Army, and each Auxiliary Company had it's own Quartermaster to look after it's needs.       
• All Auxiliary Company security duties were carried out by the Auxiliary Cadets themselves

1920 Dec 13 to 1921 Jan 24 Short SE In command no2 Vets

To establish the numbers is an inexact science

• Perhaps fundamentally, the bookkeeping by the ADRIC is problematic/unprofessional. All recruits to whatever branch of RIC (T/Cadet, Temp Constable. Permanent Constable) were inscribed in the RIC register, with there date of birth, place of birth, sometime marriage The details have been assiduously recorded, but were not checked against Birth Certificates. The result was that older men tried to look younger (as a rough guide men born before 1880 took 3 to 6 years off their age) . And men born after 1900 added 2 or 3 years to their age to look older. So the ages cannot be relied on and need checked - the correct age can usually be found. Interestingly the marriage dates were much more likely to be correct than the birth dates married recruits got a separation allowance)
• An ADRIC Temp Cadet was then entered in an ADRIC Register with an ADRIC number. This was done reasonably conscientiously, and can usually be relied on. The ADRIC numbers for Temp Cadets run from 1 to just over 2200
• With Temp Constables the book entries descend into chaos. There was no separate register and entries were made in the back of an ADRIC Cadet register where they run from 1 to 994. Even with these there are 70 who have been given 2 different ADRIC numbers ( I suspect that they went from ADRIC to RIC Gormanston, then returned to ADRIC later with a different number). There are also a number of other ADRIC numbers used (some men have 3 or 4 different numbers) but there is no single source with all numbers of that grouping

From 6 January 1920 recruiting to the Royal Irish Constabulary was extended outside of Ireland to candidates with military experience to supplement the native Irish force. By July 1921 the recruits numbered

• 7,683 candidates mainly recruited in Britain (but 381 were Irish-born) enlisted in the RIC (Herlichy)
• A separate group of 2,189 ‘Temporary Constables’ (312 Irish-born) were recruited and attached to the newly-opened headquarters of the motorised division of the RIC at Gormanston Camp in Co. Meath. (Herlichy). The Temp Constables allocated to ADRIC (the group below in this list) seems to have come out of this group. Indicating that that just over 1000 were allocated to RIC Transport at Gormanston
• A group known as the Veterans & Drivers Division attached to Gormanston Camp comprising of 1,069 (190 Irish-born) were recruited.This is Herlichy's figure. The only register with sequential numbers only goes to 994, and that includes a number of men indexed twice. My feeling is that around 920 Temp Constables were recruited for duty with ADRIC companies. These appear to have been the ADRIC drivers and servants. If you allow for "churn" with Temp Constables in the same proportion as Temp Cadets, ie knock one third off this to get max number at any one time, and dived the result 615 Temp Constables, among 19 ADRIC companies (20 companies including Depot less K Coy which was disbanded early) it indicates that each ADRIC coy had about 30 Temp Constables

Alphabetic List - probably the best way to check T/Constables is alphabetically. There are almost 1000 named with ADRIC number , and a further 1000 with no ADRIC number

Numeric List - not straightforward as there are at least 3 lists with different numbers for each man. I don't think that the numeric ADRIC numbers are accurate enough to use.

The first ADRIC Temp Constable had the RIC no 72754 and the last RIC no 83712

There was a pause in the recruiting of Temp Constables once the truce was announced, and no appointments at all were made between the Truce and l Oct 1921, after which all appointments were to Temp Constables and none as permanent constables. I recorded individual names up to RIC no 83100. After that there were 643 temp constables appointed (this number includes 25 former RIC and DMP, and a handful of Temp Cadets), with the last recruits in 7 Dec 1921

ADRIC