The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) following the partition of Ireland. At its peak the force had around 8,500 officers, with a further 4,500 who were members of the RUC Reserve.
The Royal Irish Constabulary was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the island was part of the United Kingdom. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), patrolled the capital and parts of County Wicklow, while the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police forces, later had special divisions within the RIC. For most of its history, the ethnic and religious makeup of the RIC broadly matched that of the Irish population, although Anglo-Irish Protestants were overrepresented among its senior officers.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland, is the police service responsible for law enforcement and the prevention of crime within Northern Ireland.
The Ulster Special Constabulary was a quasi-military reserve special constable police force in what would later become Northern Ireland. It was set up in October 1920, shortly before the partition of Ireland. The USC was an armed corps, organised partially on military lines and called out in times of emergency, such as war or insurgency. It performed this role most notably in the early 1920s during the Irish War of Independence and the 1956–1962 IRA Border Campaign.
Sir Hugh Stephen Roden Orde, is a retired British police officer who was the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), representing the 44 police forces of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Between 2002 and 2009, he was the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
Jean McConville was a woman from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who was kidnapped and murdered by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and secretly buried in County Louth in the Republic of Ireland in 1972 after being accused by the IRA of passing information to British forces.
Free Derry was a self-declared autonomous Irish nationalist area of Derry, Northern Ireland that existed between 1969 and 1972 during the Troubles. It emerged during the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, which sought to end discrimination against the Irish Catholic/nationalist minority by the Protestant/unionist government. The civil rights movement highlighted the sectarianism and police brutality of the overwhelmingly Protestant police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).
Sir John Charles Hermon was the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary from 1980 to 1989.
Sir Ronald Flanagan is a retired senior Northern Irish police officer. He was the Home Office Chief Inspector of Constabulary for the United Kingdom excluding Scotland. Sir Ronnie was previously the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) since its creation in 2001 to 2002, and had been Chief Constable of its predecessor, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) until 2001.
Brian McCargo is a retired Chief Superintendent with the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Colin Ralph Cramphorn CBE, QPM, DL, FRSA was the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police from September 2002 to November 2006.
Dame Sara Joanne Thornton, was the UK's Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner from May 2019 until April 2022. She was appointed by the Home Secretary at the time, Sajid Javid, in succession to Kevin Hyland who left the post in May 2018.
Brice Dickson is a barrister from Northern Ireland and Emeritus Professor of International and Comparative Law at the School of Law, Queen's University Belfast. Formerly Professor of Law at the University of Ulster, he became the first Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) on its establishment in 1999, serving two three-year terms. He was a key figure related to the Holy Cross dispute in which Loyalists sought to blockade a Catholic primary school in the Ardoyne area of North Belfast. After his time on the Commission Dickson worked as a Professor of International and Comparative Law at Queen's University Belfast from 2005 until his retirement in 2017.
The Headquarters Mobile Support Unit is the police tactical unit of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The HMSU was originally formed in the then Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) part of RUC Special Branch and was involved in several controversial shootings during The Troubles.
Sir Kenneth Lloyd Jones is a British former police officer. He was a Deputy Commissioner of Victoria Police in Australia, former President of Association of Chief Police Officers for England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom and Senior Investigator of Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong. Sir Ken Jones is a former President of Association of Chief Police Officers and presently defence & security advisor at the British Embassy in Washington DC. He was awarded the Queen's Police Medal in 2000 and was knighted for services to policing in 2009.
Sir Matthew David Baggott, is a retired senior British police officer. He was Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland from 2009 to 2014.
William Taylor CBE QPM is a retired British police officer.
Simon Byrne, is an English former senior police officer. He served as Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) from July 2019 until he resigned in September 2023. He was the Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police from 2009 to 2011 and the Assistant Commissioner for Territorial Policing in the Metropolitan Police Service from 2011 to 2014. He then served as Chief Constable of Cheshire Constabulary from 2014 to 2017.
Jeremy Andrew Harris,, is the current Commissioner of the Garda Síochána in the Republic of Ireland, having assumed office in September 2018. He previously served as Deputy Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) from 2014 to 2018.
