Page 16 - COBH EDITION 17TH MAY DIGITAL VERSION

‘My early days in Dublin weren’t all fun and games’ -
Trevor Laffan

Back in May 1980, myself and Pat Lehane travelled by
mini bus to Dublin and we were dropped off outside
Blackrock Garda Station. We had just completed our
six months training in the Garda Training Centre in
Templemore, and this was our first posting in the real
world.

I’m from Cobh and Pat is from Macroom so we hardly
qualified as city slickers. As far as we were concerned,
we may as well have landed in the Bronx. The comfort
blanket of Templemore was behind us now and this
was the real thing.

Templemore has a fancy title now. It’s called Garda Siochana College and it bestows
degrees in policing studies on students, but back then, we were just ordinary re-
cruits. We got six months training, a feed of abuse and then we were thrown out to
make our own way in the world.

Our first task after reporting in, was to find somewhere to stay. Fortunately for us,
another Cork guy who was stationed in nearby Cabinteely, came to meet us off the
bus. He had left Templemore two months previously and he gave us a hand to find
accommodation. Only for him we could well have ended up sleeping in a bus shel-
ter. That Good Samaritan was Charlie Barry, the recently retired Superintendent in
Togher.

Pat and myself stayed in the same digs for the first couple of weeks and it wasn’t a
great experience. One morning I woke up to find a chunk of the ceiling lying next to
my pillow and I soon learned that it wasn’t unusual for bits to fall onto the bed dur-
ing the night.

The first morning I went for breakfast, the landlady met me in the kitchen. She had
a sliced pan under her arm and she asked me if I wanted toast. When I told her I
did, she asked me if I wanted one slice or two. I was beginning to think that our re-
lationship was doomed from the outset. I was right, and it wasn’t long before I was
on the move.

I abandoned Pat, which he still hasn’t forgotten, and found another place to stay
in Carysfort Avenue. This was close to the garda station and it turned out to be my
home for the next three years. The house was run by a couple in their seventies and
I suspect that they were taking in lodgers for the company more than the money.
They were letting out three rooms on the first floor with two people to each room.
It was an old three storey house with a basement, where the kitchen and dining
room were. You had to go through one bedroom to get to the other two and with
some of us on shift work, there was always a bit of noise with all the coming and
going.