RIC rules and regulations

[dermo]

I have been looking at the genealogical information and service records of a couple of RIC constables and a few puzzles have arisen. The first is probably a simple one: on the record of both men, under "Punishments" the annotation "un. rec." appears. Can anyone explain what that means?
The more important query is about marriage regulations. I understand that an RIC man could not marry until he had served for a number of years. Does anyone know how many years? Also, what would the regulations say about children born out of wedlock?
 One of the men I'm looking at was pensioned at the age of 47, at which point he had served for 25 years. Would that have been the norm?
I would appreciate enlightenment on any of these things.

[ourgang]

I came across this interesting site this morning. According to this man members could not marry until they had at least seven years service.

http://royalirishconstabulary.webs.com/thebarracks.htm

[taramcdsmall]

Hi There

I have helped a few people out with this type of situation and yes 7 years was the requirement BUT a lot of men found ways around it.

I have found that some would get married in church - have a child - and then when the 7 years were up would get a civil marriage.

This leads to all sorts of confusion as a lot of times there 'appears' to be illegitimacy whereas in fact there wasn't. It all just depends on if you are lucky enough to find the church marriage record.

Tara

[eadaoin]

Great-uncle Tom was in the R.I.C. He married the same woman twice about one year apart.
 Both marriages were registered civilly. The first marriage was 6 years after he joined up, and I presume he didn't tell his superiors - then, to get marriage allowances etc, he had to "get married" again.

eadaoin

[dermo]

Many thanks to all for the information.  I have since found the RIC rules online where the seven year service requirement before marriage and other conditions are clearly set out. The book also has a section on punishments but there was nothing obvious for which "un. rec." is an abbreviation. Has anyone an ideas on this?

[ourgang]

Found this Irish Constabulary Forum while googling Un.rec.. I have no idea who runs it but, there are some interesting topics and you may be able to pose your question there,

http://irishconstabulary.com/search/text/?q=&name=&searchdate=7&beforeafter=after&orderby=created_at&boxes%

[dermo]

Thank you for the link Ourgang. It has solved the puzzle.  Apparently un. rec. stands for unfavourable record