SÍOCHÁIN The Official Magazine of the Garda Síochána Retired Members’ Association GARDA MICHAEL J. REYNOLDS KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY (1975) AUTUMN 2015 ISSN 1649-5896 TRIBUTES TO JACK MARRINAN www.gardaretired.com THE VOICE FOR GardaÍ SÍOCHÁIN The Official Magazine of the Garda Síochána Retired Members’ Association GARDA MICHAEL J. REYNOLDS CONTENTS KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY (1975) AUTUMN 2015 Autumn 2015 ISSN 1649-5896 TRIBUTES TO JACK MARRINAN www.gardaretired.com Volume 44 • Issue 3 • ISSN 1649-5896 THE VOICE FOR GARDAÍ 7 ASSOCIATION NEWS 46 LONG SERVICE AWARDS 57 O’DONOVAN ROSSA Certificates were presented to two The story of O’Donovan Rossa’s Garda widows and nine retired Casket by Michael O’Sullivan, a 20 IN-HOUSE REPORT colleagues in Cork for their member of the Reenascreena dedicated service to the GSRMA. O’Donovan Rossa Centenary Committee who decided to have 29 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR it refurbished in time for the 2015 celebrations. 34 NEW CENTRAL COMMITTEE Profile of the six new Central Committee members of the GSRMA. 53 LOOK BACK 38 GARDA MICHAEL REYNOLDS Garda Dick Farrelly, Irish songwriter Retired Garda George Langan pays and poet, is best known for tribute to Garda Michael J. composing the lyrics and music to Reynolds on the 40th anniversary ‘The Isle of Innisfree’. of his death in Dublin. 61 ROGER CASEMENT A detailed account of Roger Casement’s 1916 voyage to Ireland in a ‘U19’ German submarine, his ill-fated landing on Banna Beach in Co. Kerry and his subsequent capture and arrest. 54 UN VETERANS Profile of Garda Seán Quinn who 42 WW1 MEMORIES had to resign from the Force in Retired Sgt Andrew Kenny shares the 1950s in order to undertake memories of his late father James UN Service. Since 1989 over 1,030 Kenny, a veteran of WW1, who Gardaí have served on overseas never spoke of the horrors that he missions. and his comrades endured during the war. 62 BURNING BUSHES Eugene Cassidy, a GSRMA member who is now doing some farming in Co. Cavan, recalls the stringent requirements to obtain a PERMIT from the council to burn bushes. Síocháin 1 CONTENTS 65 MEMBERSHIP FORM 84 ARCHIVE SNAPSHOTS GSRMA EDITORIAL BOARD 67 OBITUARY NOTICES 87 BULLETIN BOARD Paschal Feeney (Editor & General Secretary) 77 POETRY CORNER 89 NOTICEBOARD 79 1962 CLASS REUNION 92 CROSSWORD Tim Bowe 81 IN THE FRAME Any queries in relation to articles or photographs published in ‘Síocháin’ magazine should be directed to GSRMA House, No. 5 Harrington Street, Dublin 8. Tel: 01-4781525; or email [email protected] (NB: Ocean Publishing is not in a position to deal with your query). SÍOCHÁIN is published by Ocean Publishing,14 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin 2. Tel: 01-6785165, Fax: 01-6785191; Email: [email protected], Website: www.oceanpublishing.ie Noel E. O’Sullivan Ocean PUBLISHING 14 upper fitzwilliam street, dublin 2. t: 01 6785165 f: 01 6785191 Managing Director: Patrick Aylward, In-House Editor: Grace Heneghan In-House Designer: Catherine Doyle The views expressed in SIOCHAIN, unless expressly stated, do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor, the Editorial Board, the GSRMA, Ocean Publishing, the Garda Garda Síochána Retired Commissioner or An Garda Síochána. Opinions expressed by the authors and services Members’ Association, offered by advertisers are not specifically endorsed by the GSRMA. All rights reserved. GSRMA House, No part of SIOCHAIN may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means without the written permission from the Editorial Board and the Publisher. Copyright 5 Harrington Street, © 2015 Ocean Publishing Dublin 8. Tel: 01-4781525 PRESS COUNCIL OF IRELAND Fax: 01-4785127 SIOCHAIN is a full participating member of the Press Council of Ireland Email: [email protected] and supports the office of the Press Ombandsman. In addition to Website: www.gardaretired.com defending the freedom of the press, the scheme offers readers a quick, fair and free method of dealing with complaints that they may have in relation to articles that appear on our pages. YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW US ON To contact the office of the Press Ombudsman visit www.pressombudsman.ie or Facebook www.facebook.com/GardaRetired Twitter www.twitter.com/GardaRetired www.presscouncil.ie or LoCall 1890 208 080. Síocháin 3 VATNo IE 6363744G EDITORIAL TRIBUTE JACK MARRINAN A CLARE VOICE FOR THE GUARDS! As the first full-time General Secretary of the Representative Body for Guards (RBG); a position he held for 27 years until 1989, Jack Marrinan played a significant role in driving change and reform within the Force. Jack’s recent death, on 12 May 2015, came as a shock to all in An Garda Síochána, both serving and retired. ohn (Jack) Marrinan was born in Lisdoonvarna, Co. At that time unmarried JClare. He attended the Christian Brothers’ School Gardaí lived in the Garda in Ennistymon. After teaching for a period he joined Stations and were on-call An Garda Síochána, in November, 1953, and his first 24 hours a day, and hours and only station was Rathfarnham, Dublin. Younger of work depended on the and increasingly well-educated men and women were “exigencies of the service”. joining the Force at that time. Jack graduated from Trinity It was not unusual College. to perform tours of duty without even a meal break. Amongst many other regulations they were forbidden to strike because of the vital role in preserving the peace and maintaining law and order. Management and structures generally had remained unchanged from the foundation of the State and had retained the paramilitary ethos and basic conditions which existed during the Royal Irish Constabulary days. These young Gardaí were now in an organisation famous for strict discipline. UNFAIR PAY DEALS Jack and his colleagues felt there was a legitimate case for improvement. Adding fuel to the fire was the awarding of an unfair pay deal in 1961, giving pay increases to senior personnel, while young colleagues, with less than five years’ service, received nothing. As a result the Representative Body for Guards (RBG) instructed members to ‘go slow’ when implementing traffic regulations. Other meetings were held in Garda stations and on 4 November, 1961, over one thousand Gardaí held a meeting at the Macushla Ballroom in Buckingham Street, Dublin to protest about the conditions of work. A committee was elected at the Macushla and it was decided to hold a series of regional meetings. Another mass meeting was to be held at the same venue on the following 12 November. The Macushla protest meeting of Gardaí was described in the media as a “revolt”, “mutiny” or an “upheaval”. 4 Síocháin EDITORIAL TRIBUTE Garda management had directed and dynamism to senior officers to record the names the hitherto cautious of all who attended. Subsequently organisation and built a 11 Gardaí were dismissed as they persuasive case that Gardaí were regarded as the leaders of the were significantly underpaid, revolt. Jack Marrinan was one of given their productivity and those dismissed. their role in the life of the State and the community. SETTLEMENT ARRANGED Some years later, in 1968, A week of high drama followed. when discontent again raised Fate then intervened when Helen its head he was instrumental Quinn, wife of the Dublin’s in persuading the then Assistant Commissioner, William Minister for Justice, Micheal Quinn, died in a traffic accident. O’Morain, to establish a The RBG decided to call off the Commission of Inquiry second Macushla protest meeting into pay and conditions, as a mark of respect. along the model of earlier The Archbishop of Dublin, commissions in the UK. Dr John Charles McQuaid, then This Commission was intervened. He felt the situation chaired by a Circuit Court had been badly handled. He judge, John Conroy, with the described the Macushla protestors key drivers being Ivor Kenny, as “decent”. “Something is wrong Director General of the Irish when decent men come out in Management Institute. The such ways,” he wrote. Conroy Commission Report He contacted the Minister was published in 1970 and for Justice, Charles J. Haughey, and offered to act as the findings were accepted by Government. intermediary, calling representatives to his Killiney home to arrange a settlement. REFORM RECOMMMENDATIONS The outcome was that the dismissed men agreed to Its effect on the Force was transformational. The report apply for reinstatement and they were to guarantee that made wide-ranging recommendations for modernisation; no further protest meetings would take place. In return from uniforms, equipment, training, to the development they were offered a Committee of Inquiry into grievances of managerial and leadership skills, new pay scales, with no loss of service and no victimisation of those new working rosters and the improvement of the involved. unsatisfactory relationship between the Force and the Department of Justice. COMMISSION Jack was the driving force behind all the submissions OF INQUIRY made to the Conroy Commission. Conor Brady, former Shortly after editor of ‘The Irish Times’, describes Marrinan as “the this Jack was transformational figure in the modernising of the Force at elected as a time of great social and economic change”. the first full- “His role in driving change was much more significant time General than that of any of the seven commissioners with whom Secretary he served,” Brady said. It can the truly said the Gardaí had of the new never seen a man of his calibre and all were very proud Representative of this decent, hard-working man who had fought for Body for proper working and living conditions for the Force. Guards (RBG); Jack’s recent death, on 12 May 2015, came as a shock a post he held to all in An Garda Síochána, both serving and retired.