Page 19 - Garda Journal Winter 2019

GARDA HISTORY | A Passage Garda’s Life
Eamon DeValera’s campaign against the IRA during World War II created further dangers for the gardai. Their lives were in jeopardy as this well-armed group (created by Mr. DeValera at the outset of the Civil War) didn’t hesitate to kill fellow Irishmen who happened to be policemen. Detectives and gardai were assassinated or died in gun batttles and several IRA men were executed. My father was part of a contingent of Cork gardai sent to Tralee in December, 1944 to prevent the anticipated riots (which never occurred) following the execution of Charles Kerins. Mr. Kerins was a popular and well known young man coming from a predominantly strong IRA town. An exception to Mr. De Valera’s anti-IRA campaign was Thomas McCurtain who was convicted of shooting Cork Garda Tom Roche on 2 January 1940 in Patrick Street and whose death sentence was commuted.
DeValera’s vision of the kind of Ireland he wished to create included the reintroduction of Gaelic as Ireland’s primary language. His zeal for an insulated self-sustaining country, cut off from the rest of the world, with its own language extended to members of the Garda Siochana who already had their hands full with their added duties brought on by the war. They were expected to become proficient in Gaelic and ordered to begin taking lessons. Most of them had been educated under British rule and had no exposure to Gaelic. I can recall my father bringing to us his weekly “homework” which we completed for him. It was eventually realised in Dublin that most gardai were doing the same thing and the programme was abandoned.
Patrick J. Brennan was born and raised on a small farm in Ardfert, Co. Kerry in the year 1900. He was the youngest in the family. As far as we know, he did not play any role in the fight for independence following the 1916 Easter Rising. When the new Garda force was established in February 1922, he was one of the first to join. It was a time of lawlessness with assassinations of RIC men occurring all around the country. Whether it was patriotism or an opportunity to leave the farm or just a job opportunity, we do not know. He also may have wanted to follow the example of his eldest brother, Chris, who had emigrated to Toledo, Ohio many years earlier and who became a policeman, eventually heading what was known as “The Hoodlum Squad” rounding up notorious gangsters of the Prohibition Era.
He was given serial number, 1615, and was promoted to the rank of sergeant while still in the Depot. He is included in a group photograph of the first class of new gardai which is on display in the Knock Shrine Museum. After the Free State army landed in Passage West and drove the Republicans from Cork City, a contingent of newly trained Gardai followed by ship, the famous “Murchiu”, from Dublin. Obviously, it wasn’t
a cruise ship and the voyage must have been extremely unpleasant to a group who had never been on a ship before. A picture was published in the “Evening Echo” a few years ago showing the first group of fourteen gardai, including my father, to enter Cork. They wore helmets which which made the almost seven feet tall. They came, unarmed, to a very hostile and dangerous place making their headquarters in the Queen’s Hotel in Parnell Place. It was always a favourite meeting place for these pioneer Gardai down through the years.
Sergeant Brennan was assigned to the Lower Road and later to Carrigtwohill. Gardai could not serve in their native counties and were constantly being transferred mainly to avoid fraternisation with the local population. Following his marriage in 1931, he was transferred to Passage West where he served until his retirement in 1963.
Of all the hundreds of Garda stations throughout the country, Passage West was surely unique and hence, a special challenge to a man of his farming background. It was once a prosperous port with a dockyard opened by Queen Victoria, where ships from all over the world unloaded their cargoes which were then taken by road and rail to Cork City. Modern dredging eventually made it possible for large ships to go directly to Cork.
Passage itself was a cosmopolitan and very close-knit town with descendants of seamen and soldiers of many nationalities who had settled there during its heyday. There were residents of German, Scandinavian, French, Dutch and English origins. In Monkstown, there was a wealthy Protestant community comprised of Cork City business leaders as well as many retired English army and navy officers. Their social life revolved around the Monkstown Golf Club and the Glenbrook Yacht Club. They were very influential people who were among the few who had telephones and who expected protection and quick responses to their calls to Passage 10. Although only seven miles by road from Cork City, Passage gardai were under the jurisdiction of the Superintendent located in Cobh. This was a strange arrangement in view of the proximity to the city. Thus, travel outside of the Passage territory was either by ferry to Carrigaloe or Rushbrooke and bicycle to Cobh and to Carrigaline once a month to testify in district court cases which were held in old railway station building. More serious cases were remanded to the circuit court in Cork.
The area under the responsibility of the gardai was approximately a semi-circle with a diameter running from Rochestown along the banks of the River Lee to Monkstown and on to Raffeen. At the rim of the half-circle were the hinterlands of Rathanker, Maulbawn, Ballyfouloo, Ballyorban and Ballinrea. This large area was covered for over thirty years by the Passage gardai and their only means of transportation was a bicycle.
There is an old cliché: “What goes around, comes around”. The bicycle, was reintroduced in New York City several years ago and has proven effective in policing several parts of the city including the vast Central Park. The only difference from the old days is that the New York policemen do not have to use their bicycles in bad weather.
The hinterland was the traditional hard-working farming community of the type of people whom the gardai, especially my father, could relate to due to their common backgrounds. He had to learn to cope with all of the different cultures and family relationships in Passage and Monkstown and to accept the fact that enforcement of some of the prevalent
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