RUC veterans are to seek Irish Government help set up a museum celebrating the history of policing on the island of Ireland.
The memorabilia collection, to be housed in Belfast, will display uniforms, helmets and weapons dating back to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) — the All-Ireland force that kept order between 1822-1922.
Also featured in the museum will be the Dublin Metropolitan Police (1836--1925), the Irish Republican Police (1920-1922), the RUC (1922-2001), an Garda Siochana (1922-present) and the PSNI (2001-present).
The project is the brainchild of the RUC George Cross Foundation which was established in 2001 to commemorate the force replaced by the PSNI. The Foundation met with President Mary McAleese last week at Aras an Uachtarain along with members of the Garda Siochana Historical Society and the Garda Siochana Retired Members Association.
It was the first-ever visit of a RUC group to the Aras. It is hoped the museum could be based next to Belfast's Memorial Garden — which commemorates RUC officers killed during the Troubles.
The Foundation, which is seeking Government funding for the initiative, has also appealed for the public to donate memorabilia like old uniforms and buttons.
Foundation chairman Jim McDonald said: "We want to develop a new museum of policing covering the history of all of the island, north and south. I'm sure it will be a unique visitor attraction." Mr McDonald, who is a policing historian, said he already has up to 8,000 items of police regalia, some dating back to 1814, to put into the museum.
The horde includes swords, bayonets and truncheons as well as archive records of the RUC. The Foundation is also planning to compile an oral history of policing by interviewing up to 1,500 retired officers, including surviving personnel from the 1920s and 1930s.
If the Foundation can secure funding for the initiative in 2007, it should be open within three years. Mr McDonald appealed to members of the public to donate old police uniforms or badges that may be lying in the attic or in outhouses.
A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern said he "will consider any application for funding from the RUC George Cross Foundation." The Foundation has forged strong links with the Garda in recent years and members undertake cross-Border exchange visits.
The Foundation was the first RUC group to visit President McAleese at her Aras an Uachtarain residence in Dublin last week. The delegation was taken on a tour of the Aras grounds in Phoenix Park. "It was a first-class enjoyable day and we had a good interchange of ideas," Mr McDonald commented. President McAleese also hosted a dinner for senior members of the Garda and PSNI at Aras an Uachtarain in recent weeks.