I`ve read today that the people who carried out the bloody Sunday massacre in 1920 at Croke Park .?

Question

Where Irishmen, auxileries working for the British. Is this true?

Answer 1

On November 21, 1920 Croke Park was the scene of a massacre by the Auxiliary Division. British police auxiliaries entered the ground, shooting indiscriminately into the crowd killing 13 during a Dublin-Tipperary football match. The dead included 12 spectators and one player, Michael Hogan. The latter, Tipperary's captain, gave his name posthumously to the Hogan stand built four years later in 1924. These shootings, on the day which became known as Bloody Sunday, were a reprisal for the assassination of 14 British Intelligence officers, known as the Cairo Gang, by Michael Collins' squad earlier that day.

The Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary (ADRIC), generally known as the Auxiliaries or Auxies, was a paramilitary organization within the RIC during the Irish War of Independence.

The ADRIC was recruited in Britain from among ex-officers who had served in World War I--especially those who had served in the Army and the Royal Flying Corps. Most recruits were British, though some were Irish, and others came from the British Empire and Commonwealth.

Answer 2

The "Tans" and the "auxies" and the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) does get confusing.

"Auxiliaries of the Royal Irish Constabulary" The "Black & Tans" were that simply as there were not enough RIC uniforms available. "Tans" were the British ex-servicemen recruited in England in 1920.

Yes, there were Irish in the RIC but the "Black & tans" were most all thugs or misfits that had been in the British army in WWI.

If you read twenty accounts you will get 20 different usages of the terms for the British Auxiliaries. Since before 1918 Irish Catholic members of the RIC were leaving and that is why the RIC got the "Tans" in 1920.

After "Bloody Sunday, 1920" the RIC was retargeted for all that it stood for: British rule.