'Boredom was more of an enemy than any prisoner threatening to shoot me'

When you meet John Cuffe you come face to face with the most affable of men; someone who is comfortable with the world and the people he meets on a day-to-day basis.

That affability, that joie de vivre, appears undiminished even though he has spent a good chunk of his life working alongside murderers, thieves, drug dealers and sex offenders.
Cuffe retired in 2007 after spending 30 years as a prison officer, most of it in Arbour Hill - and you again might think that when he shed the prison officer's uniform it would be an ideal opportunity for him to walk away from the dark side of the street. 
Instead the Dunboyne resident is now - as his business card declares - a “criminologist and sociologist” who goes around schools and colleges talking about his experience of grappling with criminals and the criminal mind. 
During his spare time Cuffe studied sociology and later a masters in criminology. Recently statistics released by the Meath Joint Policing Committee showed that crime continues to rise, in some cases significantly. Theft of property, for instance, is up 50%, property crime up by 36%. But why? Why is crime going up... and up?
The reasons, says Cuffe, are many but some stand out. “It comes back to opportunity, if you have an opportunity to live in a proper house, if you have an opportunity to get a job that pays reasonable money, if you can get an education you are going to thin out crime but you won't eradicate it,” the Dunboyne resident asserts.
As someone who mingled with some dangerous people it's no surprise to learn Cuffe had a few confrontations during his time in uniform. 
“I had a jug of boiling water flung at me with sugar in it and if it had hit me in the face I would have been totally disfigured for life,” he recalls. “I had a bowl of boiling custard thrown in my face.
“Once I was threatened by a fellow who said he'd get someone from outside to shoot me in the legs. I wouldn't take everything seriously but I took that seriously,” he recalls. 
The biggest challenge however was not provided by troublesome prisoners. Instead the most trying test was grappling with deadening routine. 
“Overall in my 30 years boredom was my biggest enemy. Most prisoners wouldn't ask you for the time of day, they just get on with it and did their time,” he says. 
“In Arbour Hill we were very lucky, the prisoners had work, they had school, they had education, they had PE, they had a lot of things to keep them going but that's not to say it was easy, there were times when it was quite tough and rough, it would only take three, four bad prisoners to upset the entire apple cart.”
It's almost a year now since Cuffe's book, 'The Monkey House' was published - and it has, by all accounts, sold very well. The name comes from a memory he has of when he first entered a prison - the smell reminded him of the monkey house in the zoo. 
“The book was fabulous in that I was writing quite a lot of stuff about my own life which I was happy to share. 
“The day the book was launched you really appreciated that it's now out there, there's nothing more you can do and you start to wonder how it will be received by people you work with, the things you wrote, would it have an impact on people but I'd have to say I got massive feedback, it opened up a new world for me.”
John Cuffe walked into the office of the Meath Chronicle to talk about his life on the first anniversary of the crash involving Coast Guard rescue helicopter R116 at Blacksod Bay, Mayo. The bodies of two of the crew members - Dara Fitzpatrick and Mark Duffy - were found while those of winch crew Paul Ormsby and Ciaran Smith were never recovered. 
The anniversary was a poignant day for many people including Cuffe who grew up in Blacksod. “I went out to Blacksod the day after the helicopter went down and you could hardly see a few yards in front of you because of thick fog.”
In an area where jobs were scarce the chance to become a prison officer in the 1970s was something John Cuff couldn't resist; it was after all a government job with the prospect of a pension at the end of it. Big incentives in a time of scarcity. 
Yet there were times when he could be forgiven if he walked away from it all. He talks about how prison officers were compelled to work long hours to help sustain the system. There was a perception that officers were minting it. The reality was very different. It's something that continues to rankle with him.
“For my first 20 years in the service we had compulsory overtime, you had no say on what days you had off, you'd be doing 11-hour shifts, horrendous shifts. 
“You read in the newspapers that prison officers were earning £100,000 a year but you were taxed at almost 66 to 70 per cent. Essentially you were working for nothing but there was an image out abroad that these hicks with no great qualification were earning savage money. 
When it was cut back you were suddenly back on your small wage.
“My own mother was up in Dublin and while she was in Dublin she passed away. I had been compelled to do a double shift that day and she passed away later that night. I had intended to go in an visit her. I didn't get a chance so for me it was a very personal thing.” 
In the mid-1980s Cuffe, who is a passionate follower of Mayo football, settled in Dunboyne with his wife Kathleen who is from Roscommon. It was in the then Meath village they set about raising their family of four. 
John Cuffe's first assignment when he joined the service was looking after IRA prisoners in Portlaoise, then one the tightest security prisons in Europe. He has subsequently worked mostly in Arbour Hill where most sex offenders are held. 
He recalls growing up in the 1960s and every village seemed to have a Garda or two who knew everyone in the community. Now all that has changed. 
“There are no Gardai in Dunboyne, now they come into the village for two or three hours in the morning, they come late in the evening but they have no base there, no inter-community relationship. 
“I have great respect for the Gardai but they don't know people in the community, they don't have the time to build up relationships with people.”
It's another reason why Cuffe feels nervous when it comes to that whole issue of crime and how it is being tackled by the powers-that-be.
The figures, those startling statistics, might be grim but they haven't undermined the Dunboyne resident’s innate affability.