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On the Beat
A womans Life in the Garda Siochana
205 pages
First published January 1, 2005
52 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 3, 2013
The style is a bit simplistic, but it's an easy and entertaining read. It is quite an eye opener on the dark side of Ireland.
March 21, 2015
This is a good and easy read told in memoir style about one young woman who joined Ireland's police force, the Garda Siochana. At the time there were only a few female recruits and "thirty of the tallest and best looking men we had ever seen." Nobody in the training school knew how a female officer should be addressed.
Some of the personal choices made by this lady are not the best, but can be explained by youth and inexperience, plus the close comradeship of the force and the training school at Templemore. She is refreshingly honest and describes the attitudes of the time as much as anything.
The life on the beat, first in a town in Monaghan where the local terrorists stalked the police and left creepy notes and parcels in their accommodation, then in the busiest station in Ireland, Store Street in Dublin, was varied and busy.
The author tells us that there are drugs for sale all over Ireland and describes how a father dropped two girls right to a concert door and arranged to pick them up later. Instead of attending the concert the two girls went off to a nearby dodgy area and asked where they could buy drugs. They were spotted on camera doing a deal and were arrested, whereupon the shocked father was put in the picture.
The author even tried out for the special armed branches but was not chosen. She then made a strange move of asking to be assigned to computer work in headquarters, which at that time anyone could have told her would have been a boring day job of typing and database entry with no overtime. Disillusioned, she eventually left and has gone on to other work.
This is an interesting read which is coloured by this lady's own viewpoint of course, and today the attitude to women among other officers would I hope be much improved.
Some of the personal choices made by this lady are not the best, but can be explained by youth and inexperience, plus the close comradeship of the force and the training school at Templemore. She is refreshingly honest and describes the attitudes of the time as much as anything.
The life on the beat, first in a town in Monaghan where the local terrorists stalked the police and left creepy notes and parcels in their accommodation, then in the busiest station in Ireland, Store Street in Dublin, was varied and busy.
The author tells us that there are drugs for sale all over Ireland and describes how a father dropped two girls right to a concert door and arranged to pick them up later. Instead of attending the concert the two girls went off to a nearby dodgy area and asked where they could buy drugs. They were spotted on camera doing a deal and were arrested, whereupon the shocked father was put in the picture.
The author even tried out for the special armed branches but was not chosen. She then made a strange move of asking to be assigned to computer work in headquarters, which at that time anyone could have told her would have been a boring day job of typing and database entry with no overtime. Disillusioned, she eventually left and has gone on to other work.
This is an interesting read which is coloured by this lady's own viewpoint of course, and today the attitude to women among other officers would I hope be much improved.
September 25, 2015
As people have already said, a very easy read. I got through it in one sitting. Honest and likeable Mary T O' Connor gives us a memoir, looking back on the life of a female Garda when men dominated the job.
June 4, 2008
It was a good enough read gives a fair insight to the life of a garda.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews