Longford garda tells all after memorable near 40 year career

When it comes to Longford’s or more specifically Clonguish’s Liam Doherty the term gentleman undeniably springs to mind.

The likeable father of two hung up his garda uniform and hat for the last time barely two weeks ago and in so doing called time on a distinguished and unblemished 38-year career.

It was an emotional, if somewhat philosophical occasion for the Carrick-on-Shannon native as he bode farewell to colleagues and a station that, for the past four decades, has been his place of work and a setting which is now arguably minus one of its most accomplished of officers.

“It was emotional enough,” confided Liam as he sat inside the Leader’s offices this week while reflecting on his last day as a rank and file officer.

“You’d miss the lads and especially when you are nearly 38 years in a place and the fact I live out the road, I’m part of the community, it’s a bit of a wrench.”

Having graduated from Templemore in 1982, it was by Liam’s own admission a convenient initial posting when garda bosses opted to assign him to Longford.

“I joined in 1982 and came to Longford in 1983 and I’ve been in Longford from the very start which was handy as it was close to home,” he said.

At that juncture, Longford’s garda station headquarters was situated along the county town’s main Dublin road, a far cry from its much larger and soon to be refurbished central offices on the Battery Road.

Longford, like much of the country back then, was vastly contrasting to its present day equivalent.

In the midst of a deepening recession and with emigration rife, Longford’s socio-economic plight had a far more unpalatable look to it.

Policing was different too with crime and, as Liam alluded to, cross community ties between law enforcement agencies and the wider public very much alien to its 21st century archetype.

“Things were a lot quieter,” confided Liam.

“There were no massive drugs problems back then. We were in Dublin Street. It was so different, a much smaller operation with a tight knit community and anybody passing the door would come in and pass on information.”

Liam’s belief in ensuring those alliances with the public has seen much emphasis locally being placed on the need to underpin the Longford Division’s community policing domain.

Not that any of those convictions were uppermost in his mind when his first official task in the job concerned dealing with and responding to quite possibly one of the force’s most infamous undertakings - the kidnapping of former supermarket boss Don Tidey.

Mr Tidey, who at the time was head of major grocery chain Superquinn, was taken from outside his Rathfarnham home by an IRA gang in November 1983.

Having identified that the IRA were responsible for the kidnapping, a massive Garda manhunt ensued and Tidey was tracked down at Derrada Wood, Ballinamore, County Leitrim, not before the incident claimed the lives of Private Patrick Kelly and trainee Garda Gary Sheehan.

“It was challenging, surely,” said Liam.

“I came to Longford in 1983 and the first place I ended up was in Derrada Wood when Don Tidey was kidnapped.

“I was down there when the shooting took place and the first courts I was ever at was the Special Criminal Court in relation to that.

“I was there when there were fellas arrested in connection to that and I was lucky as hell because when the shooting took place I wasn’t too far away when the garda and soldier were shot dead, which was big stuff at the time.”

The man in charge of Longford’s Garda Division at the time was Donegal native, Brian Grant, a man Liam spoke fondly of and whose respect was copper-fastened from the get go.

In total, the recently retired garda told of having served under close to two dozen superintendents, a number of which Liam revealed only served for a matter of months as cutbacks and reconfiguration changes took hold.

And it’s those changes and the decision to move Longford into a much broader network with Roscommon and Mayo which he conceded could have more negative impacts than positive ones.

“It is a big problem (getting more gardaí assigned to the county) but our biggest problem was when we left the Westmeath area and Longford joined with Roscommon,” added Liam.

“If we had stayed with Westmeath, the type of policing that goes on in Mullingar, Athlone and Mullingar would be similar and it would have suited far better had we stayed where we were rather than move to the Longford/Roscommon Division.”

If it’s a case of ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’, that saying is one which plainly hasn’t held sway in terms of addressing Longford’s ongoing issues with organised crime.

Tens of dozens of violent incidents have either been or are currently under investigation including shootings, attempted hits, stabbings and petrol bomb attacks.

Liam, through his role as courts garda and warrants officer has been front and centre in relation to much of those and had wholesome praise for those above him who have been leading the charge against rivalling criminal gangs.

“It is a serious problem because these feuds that are going on there is a deep hatred there and they are capable of doing anything. The biggest thing you would worry about is that innocent people would get hurt or guards themselves would get caught up in it,” he said.

“There has been a very proactive approach to it and there has been more books of evidence served than ever before.

“I remember not too long ago I must have served 20 books of evidence in one day and there are so many before the courts, but the problem is the prisons don’t want to keep them and it’s a revolving circle.

“There is people put into prison and there are sons there to take their place.

“But CAB (Criminal Assets Bureau) is the only way to get at them to go after the money because, bringing them to court, they are only laughing at the courts.

“If you give them a year or two in prison they are back out and at it again. If you hit them in the pocket, take their property is the only way to do it.”

In terms of passages of time which still live long in the memory, Liam cut a sullen figure as he recalled being the first garda on the scene when St Mel's Cathedral went up in flames on Christmas Day 2009.

That came just months after the Co Leitrim native helped guide his adopted parish to an historic Senior Championship title.

Now, and with the flexibility and peace of mind of ‘retirement’ a palpable reality, the thoughts of returning to the dugout is something that could yet happen, sooner rather than later.

“I don’t know,” he said stoically.

“I didn’t get much time to think about it since. I do a bit of farming at home and I have a bit of land in Carrick-on-Shannon.

“I am vice chairman at the minute with Clonguish. I might get involved in a bit of management too, sure you never know.”

From the evidence of what can only be described as an impeccable career upholding law and order in Co Longford, those managerial calls, you get the impression, might just be around the corner.