ABSTRACT
This chapter explains why an apparently minor scuffle in Carlow town created a crisis in Irish policing in the late 1830s. Carlow in the 1830s was clearly a deeply divided town, with intense political and religious rivalries. Successful policing therefore required great sensitivity and, above all, strict neutrality. Although doubtless admirable in retrospect, the government's positive discrimination policies caused serious tensions within the forces of law and order in rural Ireland, particularly between Protestant magistrates and Catholic police officers, and also between Catholics and Protestants within the constabulary. Shaw Kennedy was a former light infantry officer, like many of those appointed to Irish police forces in the 1820s and 1830s. He had served in the Peninsular War and had fought at Waterloo. But he also had experience of policing urban disturbances, as he had acted for nine years (1827–36) as assistant adjutant-general for the north of England, with his base in Manchester.
