‘Dedicated to helping the sick’ -Remembering Bridie Gargan

At the weekend, the Irish Times ran a feature entitled 'Stolen Lives', remembering the 239 women in this country who suffered violent deaths between 1996 and today. One of the most high profile of these was of course, the Sunday Independent journalist, Veronica Guerin, shot in broad daylight in June of that year on the Naas Road in Dublin, as a result of her work reporting on the criminal underworld.

The Irish Times feature appeared on the 40th anniversary of another high profile and shocking attack on a young Irish woman which was to result in her death some days later when Curraha nurse Bridie Gargan passed away at the Richmond Hospital in Dublin.

While much has been written about her murderer, and the case which caused Conor Cruise O'Brien to coin the famous acronym, 'GUBU' – grotesque, unprecedented, bizzare and unbelievable', this week we look back at the Meath Chronicle archive of the time to remember the 27 year-old nurse who was 'dedicated to helping the sick', according to the edition following the sentencing of Malcolm Macarthur in January 1983.

The young nurse died in the same hospital that had awarded her the gold medal for her performance in coronary care studies, the Richmond in Dublin.

Miss Peggy Reilly, assistant matron of Blanchardstown Hospital, said: "From a nursing staff of more than 300 she stood out as an excellent nurse and an effective teacher of student nurses during her three years here."

Bridie, daughter of Vincent and Bridget Gargan, was one of a family of 11 children reared on their farm at The Riggins, Dunshaughlin. She was educated at her local national school and at St Michael's Loreto Convent in Navan. She acquitted herself well in the Leaving Certificate examinations of 1971 and chose a career in nursing.

Bridie joined the specialised coronary care unit at Blanchardstown Hospital in 1978, and became a valuable, efficient, and competent member of the team.

"Bridie was a very nice person to work with and was well liked," said the unit's sister, Miss Carmel O'Reilly.

She took a pay-cut in 1981 when she started studies in coronary care at Richmond Hospital. Six months later, she was awarded the gold medal of best student on the course. Instead of returning to full nurses' salary, she chose to do an 18-month midwifery course at Richmond Hospital. But she never finished. She died three months before graduating. The family was proud of Bridie s achievements in nursing and the way she spent as much time as she could with her local community, despite her busy work schedule.

Bridie enjoyed traditional music, and with a group of friends made up a traditional session night at O'Donoghues pub, a converted forge a mile from her home.

She was also interested in politics. Seamus Flynn, Fianna Fail cumann organiser, remembered Bridie's work as secretary of her local cumann in Curraha. She was as likeable and she was very efficient at the job - and after a year as secretary had also become a delegate to the Dunshaughlin Comhairle Ceanntair. She became interested in politics because of her father's involvement - Vincent Gargan was director of elections for Dunshaughlin, and is chairman of the Comhairle Ceanntair.

Bridie and her sister, Mary, were the only women in the area to take an active political role and good -humoured political argument was one of the things she enjoyed most at home.Every Friday evening, her Renault car would pass along the winding road towards Curraha and turn off at O'Donoghue's pub towards the road for home. The car would shoot through the gates and she would jump out and head straight into the kitchen for a noisy late evening meal with the whole family,” the Chronicle piece concluded.

Tragically, on 22nd July 1982, in the middle of a sweltering summer, while Bridie enjoyed some sunbathing beside that Renault in the Phoenix Park, she became the first victim of Breemount, Trim man, Macarthur, who was to go on and kill Edenderry man, Donal Dunne, before eventually being brought to justice in one of the most shocking cases in the history of the State.

After the sentencing, Bridget and Vincent Gargan said they would try and get back to "a normal life now, because that is what Bridie would have wanted". They could never have lived a normal life after that shocking tragedy, and we remember Bridie, her late parents, and her surviving siblings as her 40th anniversary occurs this week.