A police force to be proud of

SEVENTY FIVE years ago this spring the young men of the newly formed Civic ard began to move out in small groups to the towns and villages of Ireland. With their unfamiliar sky blue uniforms, a blanket roll, a few official books and, at best, a few weeks' formal instruction in the rudiments of police work, they undertook to keep the peace in the 26 counties of the new Irish Free State. They occupied disused RIC barracks, parish halls and, in at least one instance, an Orange Lodge. Apart from the regulation baton they were totally unarmed.

The Garda Siochana - as the new force was shortly to be renamed - has become one of the most enduring and central features of the social landscape of independent Ireland. But its beginnings in 1922 were inauspicious. Originally conceived as an armed gendarmerie modelled on the outgoing Royal Irish Constabulary, the force was disarmed after elements had mutinied at its Kildare training centre, just as the Civil War was about to erupt.

The idealised concept of the unarmed Garda, succeeding not by "force of arms or by numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people", thus derived not from the foresight of the Provisional Government but from the pragmatic response of a small group of civil servants and police advisors sent in to mop up after the mutiny. The phrase quoted above belonged to Michael Staines TD, the first commissioner.

But with the mutiny consigned to history, the making of a police service for the new democracy began anew. It was a daunting task, given the paucity of resources, the disorderly conditions prevailing throughout the country and the difficulties of selecting, training, equipping and leading suitable members in sufficient numbers.

Dr McNiffe's History of the Garda Siochana is a treasure trove of information for those with an interest in this subject, surely one of the first great successes of native government in this State. More than two decades ago the present reviewer undertook a similar exercise but without the benefit of much archive material which has since become available. Dr McNiffe has harvested these new sources with skill and selectivity but has sensibly narrowed his focus in range and time. This is a social, rather than a political or operational, narrative. And it effectively stops at 1952, with the period from 1952 to the present telescoped into a dozen pages at the end.

After rehearsing the events from foundation (February 1922) to the ending of the mutiny (June 1922), Dr McNiffe settles down to a detailed exposition of the organisation and make up of the new police force. He examines recruitment, training, promotion and leadership and then moves on to document the daily routine of life for the members.

There is a fascinating section on Garda discipline and an informative chapter on the role of the force in the rural community. He accompanies the new force through its years of adolescence and into maturity. The body of young enthusiasts he describes in the 1920s, by the 1950s has become an organisation composed of middle aged men, beset by the usual problems of trying to raise families and making ends meet on poor pay, under adverse conditions of service.

Possibly the most absorbing aspect of Dr McNiffe's book is where he answers the question, who joined the Guards? For there can scarcely be an extended family in Ireland which has not had a member or relative somewhere in the force at some time; and, if not in the Garda Siochana, then in the RIC. Dr McNiffe presents a remarkable analysis of the members' background by county, by trade or profession, by religion and by educational attainment.

ADMISSION to the force was highly prized. In the lower ranks, young men of good character with an average education - by the standards of the time - found a job which offered reasonable security, modest pay and a sense of cameraderie. In the more senior ranks slightly older men, usually with a good level of educational attainment, were offered well paying jobs and middling places in the pecking order of the Free State bureaucracy.

The senior officers were a mixed lot and included former teachers, ex army officers (both British and Irish), spoiled priests, a barrister, an architect, an engineer and a handful of ex RIC men. One of the intriguing nuggets revealed in Dr McNiffe's research is the above average rate at which senior officers were cashiered for disciplinary offences, usually drinking or falling into debt.

Today's Garda Siochana is light years away from the force of the 1920s. But the sense of pride in public service which was inculcated then has not been lost. Not many countries are so fortunate. We owe a great debt to the pioneers.