Black and Tanmember of a British auxiliary police force employed in Ireland against the republicans from July name given to British recruits enrolled in the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) from January 1920 to July 1921. Their popular colloquial name derived from the name makeshift uniforms they were issued because of a variety of hunting dogs, applied to the police because of their attire of khaki coats, black belts, and dark green trousers and caps. When Irish nationalist shortage of RIC uniforms—green police tunics and khaki military trousers, which together resembled the distinctive markings of a famous pack of Limerick foxhounds. When Irish republican agitation intensified after World War I, a large proportion of the Irish police resigned, to be . They were replaced by these temporary English recruits, mostly recruits—mostly jobless former soldiers, who soldiers—who were paid 10 shillings a day and dressed in a mixed “black and tan” outfit because of the shortage of police uniforms.

In seeking to


counter the terrorism of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Black and Tans themselves engaged in


brutal reprisals. Notably, on “Bloody Sunday,”


Nov. 21, 1920, the IRA killed 11 Englishmen suspected of being intelligence agents

; and the


Black and Tans were withdrawn

RIC was disbanded in 1922 after the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921.