Members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) who died in the course of their duties have been remembered at a ceremony in the Garda Memorial Gardens at Dublin Castle.
It was held on Thursday to mark the centenary of the Police Forces Amalgamation Act, passed on April 3rd 1925, which saw 1,049 members of the DMP subsumed into An Garda Síochána.
From its creation in 1836 until 1925, 21 members of the DMP were killed on duty. A further 11 who volunteered to fight in the first World War lost their lives in combat. The names of all were read by Jim Herlihy of the Harp Society.
It was set up in 2013 to commemorate all members of the DMP, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and predecessor police forces “who lost their lives in the course of their duty”, he said.
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The establishment of the society was necessary, Mr Herlihy said, because of “the complete absence of a remembrance and reflection of police casualties during the Decade of Centenaries”, which ran from 2012 to 2022.
Since it was formed, the society commissioned two plaques honouring the 21 DMP members killed on duty between 1836 and 1925 with another remembering 11 members killed in the first World War. The plaques were presented to Kevin Street Garda station in Dublin on November 11th, 2018, the centenary of Armistice Day that marked the end of the war.
A total of 12,566 men served with the DMP. From January 1923 their name was changed to Póliní Atha Cliath before they were brought under An Garda Síochána in April 1925.
Conducting proceedings in Irish, Harp Society chairman Eddie O’Donovan remembered the dead policemen with the words of poet and soldier Tom Kettle, who died in the first World War: “Níor troid siad ar son brat nó rí, nó impire, ach ar son bruadar. Ní raibh siad ag troid ar son Sasana, ar chor ar bith.” (They did not fight for flag, nor king, nor emperor, but for a dream. They did not fight for England, in any way).
Wreaths were laid by Harp Society committee members John Sheehan and Mark O’Brien. Committee member Marie Roche described the wreaths, in a brief reflection, as “symbols of remembrance, gratitude and hope”. There followed a minute’s silence.
Mr O’Brien was dressed in a DMP uniform. His grandfather was a member of the DMP between 1914 and 1925 when he joined the Garda, rising to the position of inspector before retirement. He served only in the Dublin area.
Mr O’Brien had the uniform made, though its buttons, buckle, and truncheon “belonged to my grandfather”. However, the three medals he wore, commemorating the visits to Ireland by Queen Victoria (1900), King Edward VII (1903) and King George V (1911), belonged to his great-grandfather, also a DMP member.
A stone sculpture in the Garda Memorial Gardens commemorates deceased members of An Garda, the RIC and the DMP.
