ADRIC

 No, not the most hated Companion in the Whoniverse!  These are members of the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary, originally sculpted by Paul Hicks for the now-defunct Musketeer Miniatures.  I bought these figures from Footsore Miniatures but the website has a notice that the range will be moving on and will soon no longer be available.  I hope someone else carries them soon, they are too good to lose!

The British response to the Irish Republican Army's guerilla campaign showed a preference to treating it as a police matter.  While the British Army and Royal Navy were at the fore in the response to the 1916 Easter Rising, the feeling was that a military response would give the IRA an elevated status, while assigning the police to confront them would give the IRA a status as criminals.  One of the problems with this decision was that the IRA started to deliberately target constables of the RIC, which in turn led to many Irish members of the RIC to resign.  This meant that the RIC was understrength when demands on the service were increasing.

The Royal Irish Constabulary was the primary police service in Ireland, dating back to its founding in the early 19th Century, primarily staffed by men born in Ireland.   As the numbers of Irishmen in its ranks dwindled, in 1919 the RIC turned to British Army veterans of the Great War to make up the numbers. The surge of recruits caused a minor crisis as there were not enough of the dark green, almost black, RIC uniforms, so many recruits ended up mixing items of RIC uniform with British Army khaki.   This led to the new recruits getting the nickname 'Black and Tans', and they were very unpopular with the average Irish people, both as outsiders and as a result of their reputation for brutality and incompetence.

The Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary, aka ADRIC or the Auxies, were a specialised force that was formed specifically as an elite counterinsurgency force, recruited specifically from former commissioned officers of the British Army.  Folks sometimes assign them the Black and Tans nickname, so there can be confusion if B&T means the Auxies or the ordinary RIC "surge" constables.

The Auxies had a reputation for indiscipline, and were also known for a mix and match approach to uniforms.  Their main distinguishing feature was their black or dark green Balmoral bonnet.  Because of this, I've painted them in a mix of khaki and black-green tunics and trousers.  The Balmorals typically had a coloured patch behind the cap badge, with colour varying depending on the company.  I haven't been able to establish which coloured flash was used by each company, so I chose red because I like the way it looks!

Here are a group of Auxies armed with rifles and revolvers.

The Auxie on the right, holding a shotgun, is based on a photo, and demonstrates the relaxed approach to uniforms in ADRIC.

These two, the Lewis gunner and loader, I painted in their old Army khaki uniforms.