From immoral dances to Blueshirt days out and communist sweets, Dublin Metropolitan Area gardaí were a busy lot, writes TOM CLONAN
GARDA EUGENE Clonan – my father – sometimes affectionately referred to Dublin as the “DMA” or Dublin Metropolitan Area. Both he and my grandfather, Garda Joe Clonan, served in the DMA. Based in Pearse Street and Kevin Street respectively, they were both intimately acquainted with all of the city’s backstreets, lanes, alleys and, surprisingly enough, rooftops. Apparently, they, along with many other gardaí in the DMA spent a considerable amount of time from the 1920s right through to the present day pursuing “ordinary decent criminals” across the city centre’s roofs and fire escapes. My father also told me that occasionally he would linger on the rooftops, enjoying a cigarette on Dublin’s crime-ridden skyline.
In April, the cigarettes finally caught up with my father and his funeral seemed to put a final end to his DMA anecdotes. No more stories of "mules", as gardaí refer to themselves in the city. Going through his personal effects, however, I came across a cloth-bound ledger titled Garda Index to Special Files, 1929-1945. Reading through the file titles, of which there are thousands, I understood immediately why my father had kept it – it paints an unforgettable and vivid picture of Dublin from the 1920s to 1940s. And it does so in a way that would have left Flann O'Brien – master of the surreal – lost for words.
Dublin’s pharmacists in the 1920s appear to have been an enterprising lot. File 16 of 1929 refers to Blake’s Chemist of Townsend Street and the “alleged sale of contraceptives” there. The moral fabric of the city’s chemists seems to have deteriorated further by 1933 when several dozen files refer to the alleged sale by city centre pharmacists of “contraceptives of various design”, “mind-addling drugs” and “explosive ingredients” for “the manufacture of munitions and bombs”. It would appear from this thriving commerce that the citizens of prewar Dublin had quite the varied range of leisure pursuits and nocturnal pastimes.
An Garda Síochána itself was also the subject of many special files. File 102 of 1933 details allegations of excessive drinking by gardaí in “Clontarf Garda station canteen”. According to the file, heavy drinking sessions by gardaí took place there “on Sundays”. Not to be outdone by their northside colleagues, File 22 of 1938 refers to allegations of “excessive drinking” by gardaí in the “B District area”. At the same time in 1938, File 8 deals with “alleged widespread bribery of gardaí by the butchers union”. Many other files refer to the attempted bribery of gardaí and – rather alarmingly – in the 1940s, attempts at seduction of gardaí by “wayward women”. One unfortunate policeman, “Garda Riley”, apparently suffered more than one “attempted seduction” during this fraught period.
The Blueshirts come in for a lot of attention. A dynamic organisation it would appear, they brightened up the gloom of December 1934 with many entertainments and day trips. Files 276 and 79 of 1934 refer to “Organised Blueshirt Dances” and “Blueshirt Days Out”. They appeared to be using the money raised at such dances for nefarious purposes. Throughout 1934 and 1935 there are many files which deal with “Blueshirt Funds – Proceeds of Dances” and repeated files titled, “Blueshirt Suspected Landing of Arms”. The Blueshirts were also suspected in File 1050 of “alleged signalling to German U-boats from Bray Head”. Of course, if you didn’t fancy dancing with Blueshirts, the Garda files reveal that Dubliners could instead have attended “immoral dances” at the Ormond Hotel, or indeed engaged in a spot of nocturnal cow chasing. File 48 of 1934 outlines “alleged chasing (under cover of darkness) of cows seized by sheriff through city centre”.
Dublin in the 1930s also appears to have been a magnet for communist and fascist spies of all nationalities. File 306 of 1941 refers to a suspected German spy “Wilhelm Heinrich Bicker” who held a function for “suspicious Germans in the Swiss Chalet Pub”. Equally suspicious was the suspected Italian spy referred to in File 1063 of 1940. “Captain Remo Brun” residing at “47, North Strand Road” was considered to be a “flamboyant” and “possibly subversive Italian”. Bruno’s alias and cover seem to have been a flimsy disguise for a spy and certainly no match for the detection skills of the DMA.
As far as communism was concerned, the threat level to Dubliners was also high. File 69 of 1931 is titled “Communist Shop in Abbey Street Believed Trading in Russian Sweets”.
Also passing through Dublin that year according to File 109 were “Convict McGreedy” and “Australian Pat”, notorious criminals who were “staying at the Fitzwilliam Hotel”. Gardaí were also concerned in 1935, according to File 123, by “increasing numbers of bicycles in possession of members of the Ancient Order of Hibernia”.
I think of my father often, particularly when I cycle to and from work through the city centre. I now know that there may have been more than a grain of truth to some of the more colourful stories that he told me about Dublin’s underbelly of crime, sleaze and international espionage.