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A Force Like No Other #1
A Force Like No Other : The real stories of the RUC men and women who policed the Troubles, Book 1
In 1983, Interpol named Northern Ireland the most dangerous place in the world to be a police officer.
In 1968, the RUC was catapulted into the Troubles. Bombs, death threats and murder became a regular part of the day job. Working right at the heart of the conflict, police officers were often caught in the middle – heroes to some, villains to others.
Now, for the first time, the men and women who policed the Troubles tell their own stories in their own words. Covering all aspects of police work, from handling informants and conducting interviews with notorious criminals to dealing with the aftermath of tragic bombings, these candid, moving and sometimes blackly comic stories show the unpredictable, brutal and surreal world in which the RUC operated.
As a former police officer, Colin Breen has unparalleled access to former RUC, Special Branch and CID officers who have never spoken out before. Their stories reveal the mayhem and madness that officers dealt with every day; the psychological and personal toll of the job; and the camaraderie – and the whiskey – that helped them to cope.
In 1968, the RUC was catapulted into the Troubles. Bombs, death threats and murder became a regular part of the day job. Working right at the heart of the conflict, police officers were often caught in the middle – heroes to some, villains to others.
Now, for the first time, the men and women who policed the Troubles tell their own stories in their own words. Covering all aspects of police work, from handling informants and conducting interviews with notorious criminals to dealing with the aftermath of tragic bombings, these candid, moving and sometimes blackly comic stories show the unpredictable, brutal and surreal world in which the RUC operated.
As a former police officer, Colin Breen has unparalleled access to former RUC, Special Branch and CID officers who have never spoken out before. Their stories reveal the mayhem and madness that officers dealt with every day; the psychological and personal toll of the job; and the camaraderie – and the whiskey – that helped them to cope.
Raw, unsettling and frank, A Force Like No Other tells the real story of the RUC.
- GenresNonfictionHistoryIreland
165 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2017
21 people are currently reading
102 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
May 22, 2018
While the force may have been one whose name has been sullied by instances of collusion during the conflict in NI, there's no doubt as to the dangers being a member entailed, and this book contains many anecdotes, some harrowing, some darkly humorous, others bizarre, but most importantly gives a voice to many whose service might well in the long term be overlooked or undermined by the historical narrative. Well worth reading for anyone with an interest in NI.
June 25, 2025
This is a brilliant book, whether you are from Northern Ireland and lived through the Troubles or just have an interest in knowing more. A lot of work is still required if Northern Ireland is to process and come to terms with its violent past (and, occasionally, present), but Colin Breen has captured a vitally important perspective in his book: that of the policemen and women who served in the RUC.
The very mention of that acronym tends to provoke extreme reactions, either of lionising exaltation by one side or of strident condemnation by the other. For my part, growing up in Northern Ireland in a relatively non-political home, my experience of the RUC was an overwhelmingly positive one. Simply, they were the policemen and women who stopped our bus from getting stoned on the way to school. Relatives and family friends who served in the RUC were similarly men of integrity, public service-minded, and working quietly to serve their community as best they could. That said, I can see how I may have had a somewhat different experience and attitude if I grew up in a Nationalist or Republican home.
What is indisputable is the danger that came with donning that smart green uniform: "In 1983, Interpol named Northern Ireland as the most dangerous place in the world to be a police officer. The figures bear that out: between 1969 and 2001, 302 RUC officers were murdered, and over 10,000 were injured, 300 of them left disabled or seriously injured. Almost 70 officers committed suicide." Those are tragic figures, and multiply exponentially when the physical, mental, and emotional impacts on family members and loved ones are also taken into account.
Colin Breen, himself a former RUC officer, describes his book in the following terms: "A Force Like No Other is the frank and remarkable story of our everyday lives, of what it was like to be a cop: never hanging police shirts on the washing line; lying to children and friends about the job; checking over your shoulder and looking under your car for bombs; always on the alert for things out of place. At times, it stretched us to breaking point." This is most certainly a book written from the perspective of the men and women who served in the RUC, but I don't think it can fairly be described as biased.
Nor is the condemnation so often heaped on the RUC justified, as they were a highly effective force: "Despite the obstacles, the RUC managed to solve 50 per cent of murders committed by loyalists and 30 per cent of those carried out by republicans. The RUC evolved from a small rural-type service to the most internationally respected anti- terrorist police force in the world, whose former members still train other forces across the globe." The murder clearance rate is a remarkable statistic, and while the higher figure for Loyalist murders is likely in large part due to the great co-operation of that community with the police, it does poke a hole in the contention that the RUC was an overwhelmingly sectarian organisation that was only interested in oppressing Catholics. A significant minority of RUC officers were themselves Catholic and ran a particularly acute risk both of assassination and of rejection and ostracisation by their communities.
Turning to the personal accounts themselves, they are by turns funny, sad, terrifying, and tragic, but consistently vivid, riveting and moving. I include a few quotes below to give a flavour, mostly related to their reflections on the nature of police work:
"I was coming home from work and I heard on the news that the conviction had been overturned. It just opened it up all over again. It was like a bit of steel going through my heart. It all came flooding back to me. McCartney had been the OC [officer commanding] of the IRA in jail and had taken part in the dirty protest and hunger strike in 1981. But I have to accept the law. That's the law that I have upheld my entire life. The court found that the conviction was unsafe. But it's these things that bring the horror of what people do back into your head."
"the informer actually saved that man's life and that man will never know it. There is no doubt he was a killer himself. But that's not the point. The point is that as a policeman your first duty is to protect life - all life."
"Very few informants work for you full time. People talk about collusion, thinking agents are under control. Actually the agent is only ever under control when he's actually talking to you face-to-face. The rest of the time they can do whatever the hell they want and frequently do. Sometimes IRA men who were agents would tell their handlers nothing was happening. Then in the next day or two, those same agents were out shooting at the army or the police, and they were shot dead."
At the close of the book, Breen somewhat bitterly expresses his frustration with how the RUC's place in the history of Northern Ireland continues to be used as a political football: "We all agreed that the history of Northern Ireland's troubled past and our place in it was being rewritten without our involvement- so getting our accounts on record was a catalyst for me when I started writing down my experiences and gathering together those of other officers. The resolve to put their experiences into a book was the driving force for those who found it difficult to revisit those times. As some of the perpetrators of the Troubles' most horrific acts of violence attempt to recast the events of their murderous campaign for their own ends, we RUC members are determined that our account of our direct experiences should not be overlooked or forgotten. This book will allow our story, told in our own words, to live on."
In the last analysis, the dismantling of the RUC and the reconstruction of the PSNI was probably a necessary part of the peace process. The sacrifice made in doing so was entirely in keeping with the service of the men and women who served as police officers during one of the most difficult and trying periods in the history of our little island. But what strikes me as entirely unjust, monstrous, and absurd is the continuing tendency to cast the RUC and the British Army as morally equivalent to paramilitary groups (both Republican and Loyalist). Were the RUC heroes, villains, or something in between? Let the reader decide.
The very mention of that acronym tends to provoke extreme reactions, either of lionising exaltation by one side or of strident condemnation by the other. For my part, growing up in Northern Ireland in a relatively non-political home, my experience of the RUC was an overwhelmingly positive one. Simply, they were the policemen and women who stopped our bus from getting stoned on the way to school. Relatives and family friends who served in the RUC were similarly men of integrity, public service-minded, and working quietly to serve their community as best they could. That said, I can see how I may have had a somewhat different experience and attitude if I grew up in a Nationalist or Republican home.
What is indisputable is the danger that came with donning that smart green uniform: "In 1983, Interpol named Northern Ireland as the most dangerous place in the world to be a police officer. The figures bear that out: between 1969 and 2001, 302 RUC officers were murdered, and over 10,000 were injured, 300 of them left disabled or seriously injured. Almost 70 officers committed suicide." Those are tragic figures, and multiply exponentially when the physical, mental, and emotional impacts on family members and loved ones are also taken into account.
Colin Breen, himself a former RUC officer, describes his book in the following terms: "A Force Like No Other is the frank and remarkable story of our everyday lives, of what it was like to be a cop: never hanging police shirts on the washing line; lying to children and friends about the job; checking over your shoulder and looking under your car for bombs; always on the alert for things out of place. At times, it stretched us to breaking point." This is most certainly a book written from the perspective of the men and women who served in the RUC, but I don't think it can fairly be described as biased.
Nor is the condemnation so often heaped on the RUC justified, as they were a highly effective force: "Despite the obstacles, the RUC managed to solve 50 per cent of murders committed by loyalists and 30 per cent of those carried out by republicans. The RUC evolved from a small rural-type service to the most internationally respected anti- terrorist police force in the world, whose former members still train other forces across the globe." The murder clearance rate is a remarkable statistic, and while the higher figure for Loyalist murders is likely in large part due to the great co-operation of that community with the police, it does poke a hole in the contention that the RUC was an overwhelmingly sectarian organisation that was only interested in oppressing Catholics. A significant minority of RUC officers were themselves Catholic and ran a particularly acute risk both of assassination and of rejection and ostracisation by their communities.
Turning to the personal accounts themselves, they are by turns funny, sad, terrifying, and tragic, but consistently vivid, riveting and moving. I include a few quotes below to give a flavour, mostly related to their reflections on the nature of police work:
"I was coming home from work and I heard on the news that the conviction had been overturned. It just opened it up all over again. It was like a bit of steel going through my heart. It all came flooding back to me. McCartney had been the OC [officer commanding] of the IRA in jail and had taken part in the dirty protest and hunger strike in 1981. But I have to accept the law. That's the law that I have upheld my entire life. The court found that the conviction was unsafe. But it's these things that bring the horror of what people do back into your head."
"the informer actually saved that man's life and that man will never know it. There is no doubt he was a killer himself. But that's not the point. The point is that as a policeman your first duty is to protect life - all life."
"Very few informants work for you full time. People talk about collusion, thinking agents are under control. Actually the agent is only ever under control when he's actually talking to you face-to-face. The rest of the time they can do whatever the hell they want and frequently do. Sometimes IRA men who were agents would tell their handlers nothing was happening. Then in the next day or two, those same agents were out shooting at the army or the police, and they were shot dead."
At the close of the book, Breen somewhat bitterly expresses his frustration with how the RUC's place in the history of Northern Ireland continues to be used as a political football: "We all agreed that the history of Northern Ireland's troubled past and our place in it was being rewritten without our involvement- so getting our accounts on record was a catalyst for me when I started writing down my experiences and gathering together those of other officers. The resolve to put their experiences into a book was the driving force for those who found it difficult to revisit those times. As some of the perpetrators of the Troubles' most horrific acts of violence attempt to recast the events of their murderous campaign for their own ends, we RUC members are determined that our account of our direct experiences should not be overlooked or forgotten. This book will allow our story, told in our own words, to live on."
In the last analysis, the dismantling of the RUC and the reconstruction of the PSNI was probably a necessary part of the peace process. The sacrifice made in doing so was entirely in keeping with the service of the men and women who served as police officers during one of the most difficult and trying periods in the history of our little island. But what strikes me as entirely unjust, monstrous, and absurd is the continuing tendency to cast the RUC and the British Army as morally equivalent to paramilitary groups (both Republican and Loyalist). Were the RUC heroes, villains, or something in between? Let the reader decide.
April 27, 2022
An excellent account of day-to-day life (and death) in the RUC by the men and women who served. I particularly like how the author split the book into the three shifts - earlies, lates and nights - to cover a wealth of stories. Some frightening, some horrific, some funny and many sad.
January 12, 2022
This book should really come with some sort of timeline/context given to the stories. It doesn’t provide much except for a platform for the RUC to brag, and at times in extremely sectarian ways. The way Protestant communities are spoken about compared to Catholic communities in this book is really stark- and so is dangerous for anyone who doesn’t fully understand the context behind this book and why the people being interviewed would hold such views. None of the stories or events are backed up with any sort of academic or factual sources, which would’ve been helpful for big events such as Bloody Friday/ Bloody Sunday. I assumed this book would be an attempt to humanise the RUC, but instead it showed how the RUC see a distinct divide between themselves and the rest of society, and frankly it comes across that they look down on the rest of us.
October 8, 2019
I read the book before I traveled to Belfast where we did a political walking tour and visited some of the sites in South-Armagh. It is an easy read with both, violent, sad and funny stories about life in RUC. It is solidly in the loyalist camp of the Northern Ireland narrative (as expected), and it is difficult for me to detangle it from the visit to places like Crossmaglen where to police station still looks like a war-time fortress. The book is recommended for insight into the troubles, but should be read together with books that also look at the conflict through the republican lens.
January 30, 2025
A superb series on an exceptional police force fighting murderous terrorists while
1) having Members who were not licensed to drive (in contrast to the NYPD, which requires a driver's license for admission)
2) lacking purpose-built protective vehicles like the South African Police's Casspir
3) having to deal with mediocre political leaders like Thatcher and Major who completely lacked the clarity on dealing with terrorism exhibited by Jordan's Wafsi-al-Tall and King Hussein, Lebanon's Bashir Gemayel, Syria's Hafez-al-Assad (who smashed the Muslim Brotherhood at Hama, then destroyed the PLO as a viable fighting organisation during the Battle of the Camps), and Rhodesia and South Africa's Ian Smith and Balthasar Johannes Vorster who both, unlike Thatcher with regards to the Republic, authorised actions against terrorist active sanctuaries across the border.
4) lacking a Technical control service of the kind used by the Paris Prefecture of Police to surveil FTP troublemakers during the 1940s.
The RUC face more dangers than the NYPD. In the two decades of the Troubles, they lost 300, while the NYPD lost only 30 MOS from the 1990s to 2020.
1) having Members who were not licensed to drive (in contrast to the NYPD, which requires a driver's license for admission)
2) lacking purpose-built protective vehicles like the South African Police's Casspir
3) having to deal with mediocre political leaders like Thatcher and Major who completely lacked the clarity on dealing with terrorism exhibited by Jordan's Wafsi-al-Tall and King Hussein, Lebanon's Bashir Gemayel, Syria's Hafez-al-Assad (who smashed the Muslim Brotherhood at Hama, then destroyed the PLO as a viable fighting organisation during the Battle of the Camps), and Rhodesia and South Africa's Ian Smith and Balthasar Johannes Vorster who both, unlike Thatcher with regards to the Republic, authorised actions against terrorist active sanctuaries across the border.
4) lacking a Technical control service of the kind used by the Paris Prefecture of Police to surveil FTP troublemakers during the 1940s.
The RUC face more dangers than the NYPD. In the two decades of the Troubles, they lost 300, while the NYPD lost only 30 MOS from the 1990s to 2020.
Read
May 28, 2024Most of the books about the Northern Irish conflict deal with the politics or the paramilitaries. Rarely do we get a glimpse of what it was like for ordinary police officers who had to work in the midst of so much violence. What I really like about this book is the way it is structured. Short chapters about different police officers and their experiences either in a police station or dealing with a specific incident. Some of the stories make difficult reading such as the case of the officer who attended his own murder. This was a case of mistaken identity where an innocent person happened to be driving a similar car to a serving police officer. There was only one digit difference in the registration and the paramilitaries shot and killed this person assuming he was the police officer. To fully understand the troubles we need to hear these police stories. The RUC were far from perfect as an institution but the lives of these officers are testament to how difficult their job was. Crucial reading for those who are interested in Northern Ireland.
March 11, 2025
Jonny’s Book Club pick for March
For someone that lives in NI, I know precious little about the troubles. The book shares a range of stories, some harrowing, some bizarre and a lot are shocking.
It gave a great idea of the sentiment from the RUC at that time.
One of the best things this book did for me was start a conversation. I was born in the same year the Good Friday Agreement was signed and have only known “peace”. It’s a topic that’s never mentioned in my house and so I began asking family members about their experiences, hearing some stories which would be worthy of being in this book.
For example my mum told me about a time in Belfast during the troubles, there was a strike in place. There was to be a complete shutdown in solidarity with hunger strikers (need to confirm this). The entrepreneur in my 9 year old mum went out and started selling milk bottles door to door to the neighbours. Some of them weren’t best pleased.
An interesting read and a topic I should read up more on.
For someone that lives in NI, I know precious little about the troubles. The book shares a range of stories, some harrowing, some bizarre and a lot are shocking.
It gave a great idea of the sentiment from the RUC at that time.
One of the best things this book did for me was start a conversation. I was born in the same year the Good Friday Agreement was signed and have only known “peace”. It’s a topic that’s never mentioned in my house and so I began asking family members about their experiences, hearing some stories which would be worthy of being in this book.
For example my mum told me about a time in Belfast during the troubles, there was a strike in place. There was to be a complete shutdown in solidarity with hunger strikers (need to confirm this). The entrepreneur in my 9 year old mum went out and started selling milk bottles door to door to the neighbours. Some of them weren’t best pleased.
An interesting read and a topic I should read up more on.
October 6, 2018
Brutally honest.
As a close relative of a former senior RUC officer, I found this book graphic at times yet was fascinated as to what these men and women had to endure while carrying out their job. My relative chose not to contribute as he found it difficult to retell the many stories he could have shared. He still endures nightmares about it, and was actually diagnosed with PTSD just before retirement. He has sadly passed away recently without getting the chance to put any of it down on paper. Well done Colin for persuading so many poor men to share their stories with you. I hope many more will do so in the future and I would encourage others with an interest in the troubles and others who are just fascinated by the force named as 'the most dangerous force in the world' at one point. Brave brave men,thank you for what you did for us.
As a close relative of a former senior RUC officer, I found this book graphic at times yet was fascinated as to what these men and women had to endure while carrying out their job. My relative chose not to contribute as he found it difficult to retell the many stories he could have shared. He still endures nightmares about it, and was actually diagnosed with PTSD just before retirement. He has sadly passed away recently without getting the chance to put any of it down on paper. Well done Colin for persuading so many poor men to share their stories with you. I hope many more will do so in the future and I would encourage others with an interest in the troubles and others who are just fascinated by the force named as 'the most dangerous force in the world' at one point. Brave brave men,thank you for what you did for us.
February 16, 2018
Excellent a real insight into life in the RUC.
Never wanted to put this book down, it just draws you into the often tragic and funny, life of these brave men and women who served.
Never wanted to put this book down, it just draws you into the often tragic and funny, life of these brave men and women who served.
December 4, 2022
Really enjoyable reas
If you have an interest in policing or the troubles this is a book you should read.
A selection of recollections from various points give a good overview of the horrors and the fun parts of policing during a challenging time
If you have an interest in policing or the troubles this is a book you should read.
A selection of recollections from various points give a good overview of the horrors and the fun parts of policing during a challenging time
November 9, 2024
I loved reading different accounts from various police officers during the troubles and can't wait to start the other 2. It was very hard reading what people went through and makes you realise how lucky you were living through the troubles. It's also come from a 2 sided angles and wow amazing
July 18, 2021
Loved! Interesting to learn the history outside of the history books.
July 15, 2022
True tales of the force
November 1, 2022
Gripping read
December 1, 2022
A sobering read
An excellent collection of stories from the brave men and women of the RUC and a sobering reminder that the terrorists don’t get the change the narrative of the last thirty years. We salute you.
An excellent collection of stories from the brave men and women of the RUC and a sobering reminder that the terrorists don’t get the change the narrative of the last thirty years. We salute you.
September 27, 2025
Simply brilliant - funny, sad and shocking tales of policing the Troubles.
November 25, 2022
Memories
Interesting to read about incidents I remember living through from a different perspective.. Hopefully this will never happen again in Norn Iron.
Interesting to read about incidents I remember living through from a different perspective.. Hopefully this will never happen again in Norn Iron.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews