A long overdue honour for five brave gardaí

BACK in a recent and very dark time, a small group of people in our security forces stood in the breach to defend Ireland’s imperilled democracy. Some of them, and their families, paid a very high price. As the years fly in, too many of these selfless people are forgotten. The memory of five gardaí – one of whom was brutally murdered, the others badly hurt – in a particularly cowardly IRA ambush at Garryhinch, Co Laois, in 1976, has been especially shamefully disregarded.

This goes back to a very dangerous time in our history. A hoax caller, warning of plans to murder the then-prominent national politician Oliver J Flanagan, lured the gardaí to a lonely bungalow.

A massive bomb killed 24-year-old Garda Michael Clerkin, from Co Monaghan, and injured his colleagues. It was undoubtedly the murderous work of the Provisional IRA, despite a formal condemnation from its political wing, Provisional Sinn Féin, at the time.

It breached the IRA’s own so-called ‘Standing Order No 8’ banning attacks on gardaí. Nobody was ever charged or convicted, despite extensive investigations.

But at last, there will be some very belated recognition for the gardaí concerned. The prestigious Scott Medal will next month be awarded at a ceremony in the Garda Training College.

Credit is due to Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, who lobbied on the issue since first elected as a TD in 1987, and whose father was the subject of the hoax threat. Some senior gardaí also worked for this, including the former Garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan.

Honouring Michael Clerkin and his dutiful colleagues must remind us all that our democratic institutions cannot ever be taken for granted.