‘The parish helped raise my kids and I want to give something back’

Retired Garda and chairperson of Na Fianna GAA in Enfield, Eilish Devine is now entering her fourth year in the hot seat at her local GAA club and is glad to do it. She tells Jimmy Geoghegan how thankful she is for great neighbours who rallied to help out with school runs and matches when she was busy helping to modernise An Garda Sióchaná

In any conversation with Eilish Devine that lasts for any length of time you are guaranteed a laugh. Every so often she will think of something - an event, an incident - and derive some subtle snippet of humour from it that provokes a smile.

At least that's how it was when she sat down with the Meath Chronicle in her home before Christmas to talk about her life and times.

She will locate pieces of humour in all sorts of situations. Take for instance the conversation that was conducted to arrange the interview.

She gave this correspondent detailed descriptions of how to get to her house near Enfield that proved invaluable.

Then she warned about the two big dogs she has and how it would be better to ring the bell at the outside gate: "Just in case I don't get around to feeding them!!" she added.

It was meant to be funny and the way she rolled out the lines ensured that it was; the punch-line delivered with all the precise timing of a true humourist. There were other moments too she described in a quick-witted way; little episodes from her life where she found humour.

Yet there was a moment as well during the social-distanced conversation when the smile disappeared; when she became momentarily misty-eyed and emotional, the break in the voice an indication of the depth of feeling. It was a moment of profound sadness that for a while at least masked an innate contentment and ability to smile.

It had something to do with her 33 years in the Garda Sióchaná, a job she started in the mid 1980s and from which she retired from just over two years ago after steadily rising through the ranks.

She enjoyed her years in the Force - she found them fulfilling and rewarding - but the memories of some of what this mother-of-four witnessed, especially in the early years in uniform, have clearly left an indelible mark.

In her role as a garda she sought to do good for people; when she retired she also looked to help out the local community. That ambition led her to achieving something unique a few years ago when she became chairperson of her local GAA club Na Fianna (an amalgamation of Enfield and Baconstown).

In so doing she became a member of an elite group - one of the relatively few women to land the top job in a GAA club. Recently she was re-elected to the position for the fourth successive year. It wasn't a very competitive election. She was the only candidate, which probably says a lot for her level of efficiency since taking the reins.

"The community has raised my children, I've had so many great neighbours, people like Bernie O'Sullivan, Jacqui Byrne, Debbie Fagan, all these people have driven my children to club matches, school games when I was at work. When I couldn't get to places all I had to do was make a phone call and they looked after my children and at the weekends I tried to look after theirs.

"I did say when I retire I was going to give three full years of community work just to say in my own way thank you to those people and others. Thank you. But I'm going into my fourth year now (as club chairperson). The parish raised mine and I want to give something back."

GRANARD

When she was growing up in Granard, one of four children reared by Bridie and Frank McMahon, young Eilish had no doubts what she wanted to do. "I wanted to only do two things in life, either be a PE teacher or a guard."

When she did her Leaving in the early 1980s the Garda Sióchaná were not recruiting, at least not at first. The only course then available for her to become a PE teacher was in Limerick and she didn't get into that. Instead she went on a basketball scholarship to Canisius College, Buffalo, New York.

It was while there she heard the Garda Sióchaná were back recruiting again. She went for it, did her medical, and got called up for training in Templemore. She accepted the offer it even though it meant giving up her scholarship. She knew this was her chance.

"I didn't call at the time and say 'oh I'll be a month late joining the training course', you just didn't do things like that in the 1980s, you had a different level of respect and a different level of fear. There were no jobs in the '80s in Ireland but I was one of the lucky ones who got accepted into a permanent, pensionable state job, a job that I really wanted.

"There were very few women in the force then. When I joined, my number was 402, so there was only 401 women before me in '85 even though there had been women in the guards from the late 1950s or early 1960s."

Stationed in Harcourt Terrace in Dublin, Eilish found the early years in the force an awakening of sorts. "You would be first on the scene to suspicious deaths or very bad traffic accidents - or as a woman you would be involved in rape cases or child abuse cases. You would be seen as the caring one so you would be sent to deal with this lady or that lady. Thanks be to God that has changed now. Everyone is trained up for situations like that, everybody knows the protocols.

"There were only three women working nights when I was working nights so if there was a rape case somewhere you were shipped there or if there was a child abuse case reported you were sent there. There was a lot of pressure on you because you were dealing with sometimes horrific incidents."

This was a sordid world she found herself in, alien to anything she had known before.

"I was brought up in a beautiful household where we were well respected as children, a world where education was hugely important, sport hugely important. My parents drove us to sports every Sunday. If it wasn't running it was basketball or it was football. We were piled into the back of the Morris Minor and we headed off with our apple tart and flasks of tea. Then you grow up and you find out these things were happening to children.

"Now you got your training in Templemore but they were books and words. It was the emotional side that was very difficult.

"I can't say I was in shock or I can't say it affected me so much that I felt sick or under strain, I don't know whether I was or not. You don't know. Now, I often find myself out for a walk with the dogs and you might see a child......(here her eyes mist up and voice falters)..... and that would bring it back to you. Yes, of course, it did affect everyone involved but some people had coping mechanisms. Some didn't."

COMMUNITY GAMES

In time Eilish was to change her role in the Garda Sióchaná. She became part of a revolution as the Force moved into the digital age in the 1980s and beyond. "I was asked to spend a couple of months doing a project that involved me examining police forces worldwide to see what type of IT systems they were using. It was a three month project that turned into seven years." Cue another of her laughs.

She became closely involved in helping the Force become an integrated, modernised, computerised organisation, by working in areas such as telecommunictions and what she termed "services", supporting the individual Garda on the street. She also became involved in outlining the role of the Gardai in the National Major Emergency Strategy, work she found very fulfilling. Here she felt she was again helping out. Contributing.

Eilish was to marry Westmeath man Brendan Devine and they have raised a family of four - Joshua, Ethan, Daniel and Leah. Originally based in Dundrum, the Devines moved to Enfield in the 1990s and almost immediately Eilish's interest in sport drew her into the local community groups - the Community Games as well as the Na Fianna under-age football and hurling set ups.

All of her children have, at one time or another, represented Meath GAA teams in one code or another, an indication of the importance of sport in the family culture.

With her undoubted ability to organise and administer, Eilish has, it's clear, easily adopted to the role as chairperson of Na Fianna. She will tell you she is is easy-going, to a point, but she likes to get things done too, helped along by Brendan's diplomatic skills.

"If I ask someone to do something I like it done, I'll admit. Only that Brendan is there, there probably wouldn't be too many in the parish talking to me!" she said before breaking out into that familiar laugh again; once more deriving some humour from the everyday.