New era after 191 years of Downpatrick policing

New era after 191 years of Downpatrick policing

13 April 2016

A NEW era in policing got underway in Downpatrick yesterday with the official opening of the town’s new PSNI station.

The purpose-built complex in the grounds of the Downshire Hospital, was officially opened by the chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, Ann Connolly, and the Chief Constable, George Hamilton.

The new building, which sits in a 6.45 acre site, is one of the new ‘Pattenised’ police stations which have been built since the Patton Report recommended that police stations look less fortified.

Certainly the new station could not look more different from the building it replaced — a crumbling Victorian building at 43 Irish Street which had served as a police station since 1914 and which was one of only two stations left in Northern Ireland which predated the formation of the RUC in 1922. The other is in Edward Street in Portadown which is still used by the PSNI.

Former Downpatrick police officer, DAVE LOCKHART, has researched the history of policing in the county town to mark the official opening of the station and discovered that Downpatrick was an important cog in the policing wheel after the arrival of the constabulary in 1825.

The remainder of this article was written by Dave as a result of his extensive research.

Downpatrick being the County Town was an important centre and its courthouse had been built in 1737 nearly a century before the arrival of the ‘New Police’. Such was the influence of the judiciary that a railway was built to the town, but the onset of the Famine delayed the “train taking the strain” for the judges and the line did not open until 1859.

The Constabulary Police were formed in 1822 but County Down was one of the last counties in Ireland to accept them as local magistrates and big wigs were reluctant to have their influence diluted. 

They eventually arrived in 1825, but in 1829 the local worthies in Downpatrick decided to appoint their own Police Commissioners and Captain James Doran as Head of Police in the town. Perhaps they had read of the two Irish Commissioners appointed by Robert Peel to lead the London Metropolitan Police and they probably thought their town should also have its own force.

However, when a spate of burglaries occurred in Downpatrick a group of citizens also “wanted to go it alone” and employed their own night watchmen. Captain Doran and constable Kerwan must have been mortified when, after nearly every brass knocker was taken in the town one December night, the culprits were discovered to be the Captain’s nephew and the constable’s son.

The year 1829 was also significant year for Downpatrick and Ireland as after years of campaigning by Daniel O’Connell the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed in Westminster. The politician addressed a meeting at of local dignitaries from both traditions at Denvir’s Hotel. Although remembered for being against the Westminster Government on many issues he was keen that his co–religionists advance themselves by joining the police and a decade later was to state: “Take them, for all in all there could not be a better Constabulary force than that now existing in Ireland.” 

The first barracks was at Fountain Street in part of the old Down Infirmary, and previous to that an army horse barracks. The police then moved to Saul Street before settling in Church Street, on the site of the existing Emperor Chinese restaurant.

The Constabulary quickly established themselves all over the county. Some 39 stations existed in 1843, 44 in 1853 and another one added by 1900. In Crossgar, for example, the single constable in the town was increased to four during the early 1830’s due to faction fights at Christmas and Easter between the forces of the Catholic Association and the Brunswick Clubs, formed from within the ranks of the Orange Order. One of the most notorious clashes occurred in Crossgar on St Patricks Day 1849 when constable Patrick Burke was killed during serious disturbances.

The police dramatically reduced reported crime from 20,986 offences in 1847 to a figure of 4,401 in 1862.

In 1870 the police headquarters for County Down moved from Hillsborough to Downpatrick and was to remain in Down’s County Town until 1970 when it became part of the RUC’s G Division. The County Inspectors lived in a substantial house at the Quoile called Portland and many of them are buried in the graveyard of Down Cathedral.

The police moved from their barracks in Church Street in 1914 into a grand building at 43 Irish Street which had been the home of James Cleland, the son of Hugh and Elizabeth Cleland. Elizabeth nee Thomson had inherited a substantial estate when her wealthy property owning brothers William and James died. Elizabeth had married Hugh, her servant who hailed from Dublin.

Hugh Cleland had fallen on good times and ran a grocery business in the town although allegedly he had not been averse to a bit of smuggling. This did not prevent him being appointed the first manager of the Ulster Bank in Irish Street. Meanwhile, his son James lived in 43 Irish Street which is thought to date from the early party of the 19th century. Another son, John Thomson Cleland, compiled the first ever history of the Town entitled “The Annals of Downpatrick” in 1846 at the age of 17. 

It was a substantial residence and must have had a few owners as there are several coats of arms on stained glass windows and on the ornate plastered ceilings. The Cleland family leased the building to police from 1914 until the police bought it in 1940. Members of the Clelland family lived opposite the Irish Street Police Station until the 1970s.

However, within 24 years the police were already looking for a new barracks. Dr Maurice Hayes, one time Town Clerk to Downpatrick Urban Council, remembers his father (who also held this position) saying that a move from 43 Irish Street had been first muted in 1937. The building was too small for the County HQ.  

In 1947, County Inspector Millar and the Works Department looked at a site near the Town’s War Memorial but this project was shelved, presumably due to post war financial constraints.

In the 1960s a site at Mary Street, above the Irish Street station, was earmarked for the new County HQ and for many years a notice was in place on the site pronouncing that a new station was to be built.

Things dragged on and when the troubles started security considerations scuppered the plans. Ballydugan Road was also considered as a site but was also shelved.

The police have eventually moved in to a new police station nearly eight full decades after a new County HQ was planned — that is even longer than the delay in building a new Police Training College first suggested in the Hunt Report of 1970.