‘There should be a fire inside you that wants to do a good job’

MICHAEL KEAVENY

He has worked on some of Ireland's most notorious and heartbreaking cases but for recently retired Garda Pat Marry it's all he ever wanted to do and can trace his interest in joining the force back to his childhood in Navan.

“I was born on Bridge Street, where I lived until I was 11 and moved out the Boyne Road after that.

"When I was about eight years of age, my mother sent me to the shop for butter. I came across a guard who spoke to me and I was struck and taken at the time by how clinically clean this man was, the chain on his tunic. I remember going on to my mother. She told me that Gardaí lock up bad people. That put the idea in my head.

"Then my father had a friend who was a sergeant and used to call to the house in uniform. He would show me the baton, his cuffs and he put me in an arm lock. All of these sowed a seed in me.”

Pat’s first attempt to enter the force ended with disappointment when he was initially rejected from entering in his late teens. “I was 17, I went to the Garda station to sign up. The sergeant there shook me and said, you're a bit skinny and too young. So he said, come back when you have a bit of meat on you, which was disappointing.”

After this set back he went to work in the private sector, working in painting and decorating for a year followed by a stint as a computer operator in Navan Carpets. He then went to work in Union Camp in Ashbourne, where he worked in sales followed by a stint in design in packaging. After a successful spell in Union Camp where Pat helped to design a new packaging system, he left to join the Gardaí once more.

“They didn’t want me to leave, they offered me more money and told me if I ever wanted to come back they would hold my job for a year, but I knew joining the Gardaí was my calling.”

After graduating from Templemore, Pat’s first job was to be stationed outside the British Embassy in Donnybrook, which he said was monotonous work. “I was standing outside embassies, it was very boring. I remember one night standing outside the British embassy, I was so fed up, I was just standing there looking up at the stars, thinking there has to be a better life than this. I thought about packing it in and going back to Union Camp.”

Pat applied for a transfer and ended up being stationed in Blanchardstown, which he says was a world apart from Donnybrook. “It was much different, I learned a lot there. I nearly got killed one day. I was part of a team searching a house. We tried to arrest a guy and he made a bolt for the back door and I followed him. But the door was locked. There was a big knife on the counter so he grabbed it and tried to stab me in the chest. I grabbed his wrist with two hands because he was very strong. I was carrying a firearm and if I could reach it I’d have shot him, but wouldn't have had the strength to hold him off and he could stab me, so I held on and shouted for help. His mother was blocking the doorway, so one of the lads had to punch her in the head to get passed her and a big struggle ensued which ended up leaving one of the team stabbed in the hand.”

Pat stayed there for ten years before being sent to Clones for two years, patrolling the border around the time of BSE, before being sent to Balbriggan. “I spent nine years in Balbriggan as a detective sergeant. I dealt with a lot of the most high profile murder cases in the history of the State, with the murders of Rachel Reilly and Mary Gough.” After Pat got promoted to detective inspector he was sent to Drogheda for two years before being sent to Dundalk, where he retired in 2018.

“On my first day on the job in Dundalk, job I had to go up to a murder investigation. I didn’t even know where the Garda station was. I was appointed senior investigating officer. It was very daunting, coming in from the cold to direct detectives I had never met before, but they were fantastic guys to work with.” Pat was able to build up a good rapport with the families of the victims whose cases he investigated by putting himself in their shoes.

“You have to start to have to put yourself in the light of the parents who have lost their son or daughter. They're looking to me for answers. You look into their eyes of the family who were suffering, they’ve lost a loved one, and they're asking you to bring some sort of solace. But I was also conscious to treat everyone with respect even the accused and their family. It is all about trust. You don't break that trust. Because there are guards who don't care about families. They see it as just a nine-to-five job where they just get in, get out, get their sub, get their overtime, get their Sunday pay and that’s it.”

The high regard in which victims’ families held Pat was evident when he received letters from their families when he retired. “It was great to get them, I have them all at home. It was a good indicator of how professional the Gardaí can be and what they should do. That’s the level that you should be going for.

On the other hand, I can't help but think of the number of investigations that are out there that are sitting there and that could be solved. There should be a fire inside you that wants to do a good job."

Married to Niamh and father of three daughters, Cheryl, Jade and Doireann, Pat describes being at the centre of a high-profile investigation as being intense. “As the investigators, you were aware of what the public were following you.

The Evening Herald told us they sold 30,000 extra copies when Rachel Reilly's picture was on the front.” Pat also investigated the murder of fellow Garda Adrian Donoghue and helped secure a charge against Aaron Brady. “It was a job”, he said.

“It was well received by other gardaí, I got an email from a member who I had never met before praising me for it. The day the charges were pressed I handed in my resignation from the force.”

Since retiring Pat has worked as a private investigator as well as contributing to TV shows such as RTE’s 'The Case I Can’t Forget' as well as writing a book called 'The Making of a Detective'.

As part of the Redline Festival, he will be in conversation with Paul Williams and Marie Cassidy at The Civic Main Space in Tallaght on Saturday the 15th of October at 8pm.