Every policeman who was killed or wounded during the rebellion was engaged in the performance of a duty they could not avoid, and it is lamentable in the extreme that they suffered so severely.

They were cut off in their prime by their own countrymen without warning, and writes Ray Bateson, so far as we are judges without cause.

Wives were left without husbands, children without fathers, parents without sons and sorrow entered the houses of many.

As one policeman dying after the Battle of Ashbourne said: 'It's too bad we have to be fighting one another.' Their stories are compiled from newspaper reports of the events, the inquests, the trials, witness statements and a variety of sources