Bandon Superintendent ‘emotional’ as he retires from gardaí after 40 years of service

Superintendent Brendan Fogarty recently said farewell to his colleagues in Bandon Garda Station after 40 years’ service with An Garda Síochána.

Brendan joined the gardaí in 1982 and served with distinction until his last day, on June 25. He had ‘mixed emotions’.

“It was emotional,” Brendan said. “It was a job I was in a week short of 40 years. My time in the service flew. There were mixed emotions on my last day. You wouldn’t be normal if there wasn’t. I was saying good luck to a job and colleagues. Walking out was tough. You had a system in place. You dealt with whatever the day threw at you. With that, I am looking forward to a new chapter.”

The Killeagh native, who was 20 when he was recruited by An Garda Síochána, was joined on his last day by contemporaries from his training at Templemore. He said he will miss the camaraderie of the job.

“The application was filled and I kind of found myself there. The minute I went in, I enjoyed it. There are normally 25 recruits in each class. I made friends with those lads, and I am still friends with them. 

"Four or five of them joined me on the day of my retirement. I will miss the camaraderie and the people. They were so dedicated and were brilliant. They were people you could depend on.”

Brendan’s first base, coincidentally, was to be Bandon, and he didn’t know where it was. He and his family happily settled there and while various promotions took Brendan to travel elsewhere for work, his family remained happily rooted in their adopted new town.

“My first base was Bandon in 1982. I didn’t even know where it was. I did 12 years. I then had spells in Castletownbere, Dunmanway, and Clonakilty. I then worked in headquarters in Dublin, as an inspector. I then came back to Anglesea St, where I was doing court work, and I was the patrol officer in charge of the city.

“I was in Bantry as superintendent in 2015, before I came back to Bandon and served my last five years there. I started as a guard here and I ended up as a superintendent here, which is something I never would have thought at the start.

“We live in Bandon. We fell in big time with the community. When I worked in my various roles, it was me who did the moving. We joined all the clubs here, such as the GAA, badminton, and swimming. In the last 15-20 years, I got involved with the golf club,” he added.

During his tenure in An Garda Síochána, Brendan has seen a notable change in crime trends, with a decrease in burglaries, and an increase in fraud cases.

“We have had a change in crime trends,” Brendan said. “We would have had more burglaries back in the 1980s than we would have now. Certainly, in the Cork divisions there is a huge emphasis on fraud investigation, such as online fraud. People are being sucked in by professionals and they are losing their life savings.”

In another seismic change in modern society, he said the growth in drug use has been catastrophic, with drugs now prevalent in every village nationwide.

“Drug use is phenomenal now. Drugs are very prevalent. They offer quick gains financially for people and when people see easy money, they don’t care about the consequences or the devastation that it brings to families.”

Brendan said that “local knowledge” remains a key weapon in the armoury of all members of the gardaí. “When I joined, in 1982, local knowledge was a huge thing and it still is,” Brendan said.

“It has to be a big thing, because people are travelling so much in every profession. There is huge commuting, and it is replicated all over the country. I often hear people saying they don’t know the guards as much anymore. The guards are still doing what they did 40 years ago, but it is just done with different tools.

“I would still put huge emphasis on local knowledge. I was always big into that. I brought that with me, as all around West Cork I knew people in every Garda district, so when I went to a place, it wasn’t alien to me. If I had to work in Clonakilty, I would know every day what was going on in Skibbereen.”

Brendan said there have also been huge changes within policing in Ireland, as the organisation has evolved, especially with regards to their use of IT and forensics in a bid to stay one step ahead of the criminals.

“Crime analysts were not there when I joined,” Brendan said. “The computer system was very basic. We have a lot better use of IT now. We have tools like the automatic fingerprint recognition system, which can be used across the world. 

"Crime has changed and our organisation has moved with that. We have the organised crime units involved with organised crime, such as drugs and drug trafficking. We have the protective-services unit, which deals with all the sexual crime. They are divisionally based everywhere. Those people are very well trained with child-specialist interviews. We have very professional people who are highly trained in those areas.”

This year, An Garda Síochána is celebrating the century of its establishment. Brendan said the force still has the trust and respect of the public.

“We still have a very high rate of satisfaction from the public,” Brendan said. “I know in the three Cork Garda divisions — Cork North, Cork West, and Cork City — we would still have huge respect. You may not have it in some places and that is okay. We still retain that respect, because we are still solving the crime.

“We have become more professional in some of our investigations. Having more open days in Garda stations has helped. School children and special-needs units come in for tours.

“If you went back 40 years ago, unless you were arrested, you were probably never in a Garda station unless you were filling out a passport form, whereas now people are welcomed.”

Brendan said he is looking forward to spending more time with his family in his retirement.

“I am still involved in organising a golf classic, at the moment. I won’t be idle. I will take it easy for a while, but when I get bored, I will go at something else again. I am lucky that I have my health. We have grandchildren now and we play a small part in that as well.”