Chamberlain was made a
Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1900. In the same year he was appointed Inspector-General of the
Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), the armed police force for the whole of
Ireland except
Dublin. The force was under the direct control of the British Administration in Ireland, based in
Dublin Castle. It was responsible for intelligence gathering as well as maintaining order, and was seen as the "eyes and ears" of the government. He formally resigned from the British Army on 1 November 1901. He was appointed
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in August 1903,
Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in 1911 and was awarded the
King's Police Medal in the 1915
New Year Honours. Chamberlain's years in the RIC coincided with the rise of a number of political, cultural and sporting organisations with the common aim of separating Ireland from the UK, which were often referred to as
Sinn Féin, culminating in the formation of the
Irish Volunteers in 1913. In reports to the
Chief Secretary for Ireland,
Augustine Birrell, and the
Under-Secretary, Sir
Matthew Nathan, Chamberlain warned that the Volunteers were preparing to stage an insurrection and proclaim Irish independence. However, in April 1916, when Nathan showed him a letter from the army commander in the south of Ireland telling of an expected landing of arms on the south-west coast and a rising planned for
Easter, they were both "doubtful whether there was any foundation for the rumour". The
Easter Rising began on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, and lasted for six days, ending only when much of
Sackville Street had been destroyed by artillery fire. Although the
Royal Commission on the 1916 Rebellion (the
Hardinge commission) cleared the RIC of any blame for the Rising, Chamberlain was eventually forced to resign following continued criticism of the force's intelligence handling. ==Later life==