Gardaí who performed the first-ever rescue of survivors by the force’s underwater unit have been awarded Scott medals for bravery over challenges they faced during the dangerous cave rescue in Co Mayo more than 25 years ago.
Insp Joseph Finnegan and Sgt Kieran Flynn were awarded bronze Scott medals for their role in the October 1997 sea cave operation.
An initial operation by the two men and their colleagues resulted in three survivors being rescued from the caves near Lady’s Bay, Belderrig, during rough conditions and amid darkness. A second rescue, carried out in daylight, was required to recover the bodies of two men who did not survive.
With waves of 15ft to 20ft crashing inside the cave, Insp Finnegan and Sgt Flynn managed to make their way to the back of the area. Using ropes and floatation aids, they were able to remove the remains during a 90-minute operation, with the assistance of colleagues on a boat.
“We were alerted there was a family who hadn’t returned from a boating trip, and locals had started a search operation and found them at the back of a cave,” Insp Finnegan recalled at a presentation of Scott medals to eight serving and deceased members of An Garda Síochána in Dublin on Monday.
The underwater unit had up to that point only ever been tasked with recovering dead bodies, but on that day, members were flown by helicopter to Co Mayo. They landed in a farmer’s field in the dark, with tractor lights used to help the helicopter touch down safely.
After the three survivors were rescued, it became clear that two people had died and their remains were still in the cave, which was filled with sea water. A second operation to retrieve them was planned and then successfully executed.
“It was the first time ever we were brought into a live rescue situation, because normally we’d be tasked to recover fatalities or evidence – so this was a first in the history of the unit,” said Sgt Flynn.
Det Sgt Denis O’Brien
A gold Scott medal was presented posthumously to the family of the late Det Sgt Denis O’Brien by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris and Minister for Justice Helen McEntee at a ceremony in Dublin.
Det Sgt O’Brien had been targeted by IRA members as he left his home in Rathfarnham, Dublin in his car on September 9th, 1942. He was ambushed by three paramilitaries with sub-machine guns. He managed to flee his car and returned shots.
However, as he was attempting to get to safety, a fourth gunman who was lying in wait fatally wounded him. One of the gunman was subsequently arrested and convicted, and sentenced to death by hanging.
The medal was accepted by Det Sgt O’Brien’s granddaughters, Orla and Meabh McKeown. Orla said the family was “very proud and very honoured”. She said it was “a very emotional day for us all”, especially as the medal was being received on the 82nd anniversary of his murder.
“My mother is at home and she’s very elderly, very frail, but it’s a very special day for her,” she said. “He was called Dinny. He loved sport, antiques, gardening, flowers. He loved family gatherings, singsongs.”
She added that her deceased grandfather’s “artistic endeavours would go completely against activities of a guard”, but had been passed down to many of his grandchildren.
“Even the smallest, the youngest of them... I heard a story this morning; his great, great grandson heard his name on the radio this morning and said ‘Mammy, wow, that’s him on the radio’. So it’s lovely to see the interest going down through the generations, and the pride and the consciousness in a seven- or eight-year-old of the honour that has been done.”
Scott medals are presented to members of the Garda for great bravery, with recipients often nominated by their colleagues or family members, sometimes decades after an incident.
The initial aim of the medal scheme, which still applies, was that acts will only be honoured with a medal if they involved “personal bravery, performed intelligently in the execution of duty, at imminent risk to the life of the doer, and armed with full previous knowledge of the risk involved”.
Supt John Curtin
Supt John Curtin was awarded the gold Scott medal posthumously, some 93 years after he was shot dead in an ambush in Friarsfield, Co Tipperary, on March 21st, 1931. He had been threatened by letter the previous November and just days before his murder he had brought a number of paramilitaries before the courts in Clonmel.
He was attacked by a group of armed men after arriving at his home and finding the gates closed, a tactic designed to stop him from quickly driving away. He was unarmed at the time and was discovered injured by his sister-in-law. He died from his wounds in hospital later that day.
Garda Timothy McSweeney
Garda Timothy McSweeney, who is serving in Cork, was awarded a silver Scott medal for rescuing a woman and her young children from a dangerous domestic violent incident involving an intoxicated man armed with a knife. The incident occurred in Douglas in March 2022.
Garda McSweeney entered the house and managed to disarm and subdue the attacker, who had threatened him with the knife. Despite sustaining a variety of injuries, including stab wounds to his arms, he managed to overpower the attacker.
Garda Morgan Lahiffe
Garda Morgan Lahiffe was posthumously honoured with a bronze Scott medal for his role in tackling and pursuing an armed gang who raided a supermarket in Togher, Co Cork, in August 1971. His partner on the day, Garda Gerry O’Sullivan, was awarded a silver Scott medal the year after the gang raid. Garda Lahiffe was later awarded a gold medal for his role in tackling another group of raiders in Cork in 1978.
During the 1971 incident, a three-man armed group targeted the Five Star Supermarket, and Garda Lahiffe and Garda O’Sullivan were threatened at gunpoint several times. However, they managed to pursue the armed gang and call for back-up, and when additional gardaí arrived in the area, the three raiders were arrested.
Sgt Niamh Connaughton and Det Warren Farrell
Dublin-based gardaí Niamh Connaughton and Warren Farrell were awarded bronze Scott medals for their work in overpowering a criminal armed with a gun during an off-licence robbery on Ninth Lock Road, Clondalkin, on March 27th, 2013.
The two gardaí entered the off-licence after realising a robbery was under way as two men, one armed with a gun and the other with a screwdriver, were threatening staff.
The gunman pointed his firearm at both gardaí, who tackled him and managed to arrest him after he had assaulted them and used a customer as a shield to try to avoid the pepper spray used against him. The man with the screwdriver managed to flee after a violent struggle, but was later caught.
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