It Occurs to Me: Garda centenary celebrations

A recent event in the Mount Errigal in Letterkenny saw the awarding of An Garda Síochána centenary medals to serving and retired members, as well as family representatives of deceased members.
My mother attended and received one on behalf of Garda Mick Galligan, who had almost 40 years of service as a garda in County Donegal.
It was a very proud and moving moment for mum and for all her family. Over twenty years ago, my first It Occurs To Me dealt with growing up in a garda family, and how it had shaped my life to a great extent.
A few years after Dad retired, I persuaded him to be interviewed by Stephen Price of BBC Radio Foyle, in connection with a documentary on turf, as he had worked on the Bog of Allen as a teenager, breast-cutting peat in trenches. One of many stories he relayed to Stephen was that while working on the Bog of Allen, he did a nixer looking after the garden of a retired RIC man in Kildare, who called him aside one day and said: “The gardaí are recruiting, Mick, would you consider applying?” My father, who had been hired out in Teemore in Fermanagh at the age of 14, and recalled being lost in Belfast with one and threepence in his pocket at 16, told his kindly benefactor that he had had no schooling since leaving at 12 in Killeshandra, and that there was no point. The ex-RIC man promised to give him grinds, and the rest is history.

North to Alaska?
His most poignant story from the Bog was about befriending a lad from Connemara who was very homesick and had little or no English.
My father had the same problem with Irish but between the jigs and the reels, they established a rapport, and as dad could write, his friend would give him the gist of what he wanted to convey to his mother in Connemara.
Dad wrote the letter in English, posted it to the parish priest in Connemara (with a pound note enclosed) who would then visit the woman and translate it as Gaeilge. Ironically, when the garda exam results landed in Irish in Cavan, dad misread the letter and resigned himself to another bout of backbreaking work somewhere.
By chance, his neighbour, Garda Frank Magee, was visiting next door, and he asked to see the letter. Imagine the shock and delight for the 19-year-old and his parents to learn that Michael Galligan was indeed on his way to Phoenix Park for training and to begin forty years of dedicated service to the force.
His journey to his first station was memorable indeed. He came on the train to Carrigans in April 1947 - the year of the Big Snow - from the old Garda depot in Phoenix Park. Because of the heavy snow along the way, there was quite a delay in the journey. Consequently, the sergeant, who had walked to the station with his Alsatian dog, was encrusted with snow on the platform.
All my father could see when he disembarked was the white silhouette of man and beast. For the want of something to say – after the sergeant brusquely greeted him, “Galligan, I presume” – he quipped: “Yes, sir…by the way, I thought for a minute I was in Alaska.” The Sergeant responded: “Galligan, when you’re in Carrigans six months, you’ll know you’re in Alaska! (The baby in the attached photo only remembers warmth!)

Plans for over 50 new houses in Inishowen

Planning permission has been sought for big developments in Buncrana and Carndonagh

John Alphonsus Murrin came from the small townland of Aighan, not far from the village of Bruckless. He was born in 1898 into a relatively wealthy family, his father being a successful merchant and member of the Donegal Board of Guardians.
Their house contained over 13 rooms and a roof of slate, something uncommon in that part of the world at that time. The family also employed several servants.
This comfortable background did not deter Murrin from doing his part for his country and enlisting in the Irish Volunteers during the War of Independence. He took the pro-Treaty side after the conflict and became a soldier in the National Army, before joining the gardaí in April 1923.
He was swiftly deployed to the troubled district of Carrick-on-Suir.
On the afternoon of May 5, 1924 Garda Murrin’s colleague, Garda Joseph Collins, was on bicycle patrol in Cregg near Carrick-on-Suir when he spotted a man he did not recognise cycling on the footpath in the direction of the town. When he got within a hundred yards, Collins sprung out and approached him with his hand in the air, ordering him to stop and disembark the bicycle so his name and address could be taken down. Events took a sinister turn at this point when the stranger produced an automatic .45 Colt revolver without warning from his pocket and used it to fire a bullet in the startled garda’s direction from three yards.
The shot missed its target narrowly and Collins decided for his own safety to desist from chasing his quarry further.
He instead continued his duty, arriving back to the station in Carrick-On-Suir at 6.30pm where he made a report to his sergeant of the bizarre and unprovoked attack. The 25-year-old Cork city native Sergeant Thomas Griffin was the man in charge of the station and was told the strange tale.
Enquiries determined that the gunman was a man named Sonny O’Dwyer from the townland of Cregg.
On the afternoon of May 6, Sergeant Griffin made the decision to go to the area and attempt to capture O’Dwyer. He enlisted the help of Garda Murrin in what had the potential to be a dangerous assignment. Despite the potential danger, neither man was armed.

The fatal shooting
They arrived at O’Dwyer’s farmhouse just before 4pm. It was unoccupied and appeared to be empty. The two men entered cautiously, with Sergeant Griffin in the lead. When Griffin got to the back of the house he saw a man, who pulled a revolver out of his pocket and held it behind his back.
The sergeant continued to approach the stranger nonetheless. When he was about seven paces away the man pulled out the revolver and shot Griffin in the abdomen. Garda Murrin, who was some distance behind, ran in on hearing the gunfire. He too was shot, receiving a bullet in the spine.
The day after, Garda Murrin died in hospital. The cause of death was myelitis or inflammation of the spinal cord, and heart failure brought on by septic absorption.
The injuries were consistent with a gunshot wound. Murrin’s body was removed by train from Dublin to Donegal.
It was then conveyed onwards to the village of Bruckless where Garda John Murrin, less than a year in An Garda Síochána, was greeted by a similarly large crowd as had awaited Sergeant Griffin. He was then laid to rest in his family plot in the local graveyard. O’Dwyer was never apprehended.