Patrick Malone, who served as Garda commissioner from 1973 to 1975, has died at 91 in a Dublin retirement home. Mr Malone joined the Garda in 1931 and served in Dublin, Waterford, Sligo, Donegal and Cork. He served in Garda Headquarters as head of the C3 Department, now Crime and Security, just as the Troubles broke out in Northern Ireland.
As commissioner, he began the implementation of modernising recommendations of the Conroy Commission. He was also the first commissioner to meet an RUC chief constable. This occurred in January 1974 under the auspices of the cross-Border co-operation initiative introduced under the Sunningdale agreement the previous month.
Mr Malone is predeceased by his wife, Joan, and his son, Robert, who died in 1987. He is survived by three other sons and two daughters. The funeral Mass at the Convent Chapel at Maryfield Nursing Home, Chapelizod, Dublin, is at 11 a.m. tomorrow followed by burial at Ballygunnery Cemetery, Co Waterford.