Dave retires after 22 years of service as a Bray fire fighter
Fire fighter Dave Gallagher was joined by past and present members of the fire service for a party to celebrate his retirement last weekend.
The celebration took place at the Hiberna in Bray on Friday night.
Dave was a member of Bray Fire Service for almost 22 years. As well as members from Bray, members from the other fire brigades in County Wicklow as well as Dublin Fire Brigade and the ambulance service joined him. Some of the serving members dropped in. The nature of their job had them on duty. They held a separate event for him at the station after training the previous Tuesday evening. Dave thoroughly enjoyed the night. He hadn’t seen some of the well-wishers in quite some time and was delighted to catch up with them. While he is looking forward to not being on call, and being free to leave the immediate area whenever he wishes, Dave will certainly miss the work.
The Cois Sleibhe man said that while the job is considered part-time, it took full-time commitment because of being on call most of the time.
‘You had to dedicate yourself to the fire service, and be 100 per cent dedicated,’ he said. Dave said that there was great job satisfaction for him, and fantastic camaraderie with his colleagues. ‘You built up very close relationships with people. You have to rely on each other and there’s a strong bond.’
The hardest time for him was the blow the sad deaths of his colleagues Brian Murray and Mark O’Shaughnessy in September 2007, when the two firemen died in the line of duty at Adelaide Villas. Dave was off with an injury at the time of the tragedy.