Talk:Garda Síochána

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Contents 1 Gardai failings 2 Article name 3 Requested move 3.1 Discussion 3.2 Decision 4 Ranks of the Gardaí 5 Garda Síochána Act, 2005 6 Badges of Other Police Services 7 Garda Failings Section 8 Caution 9 Badge 10 Bangharda 11 Ned Garvey 12 Coverage Map 13 English 14 Emergency Response Unit

[edit] Gardai failings

Heres some good links to update for the findings of the morris tribunal.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0715/morris.html

http://www.morristribunal.ie

I don't know enough about the case to update this page.

This page seems to put too much of emphasis on the failings of the gardai. Anybody got positive points to add?

[edit] Article name

This page was recently moved to Garda Síochána. An Garda Síochána is the more proper term (see website). The full form would be appropriate also. Do not move this page without discussion.

zoney ♣ talk 18:54, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I would support a move to Garda Síochána. The convention isn't to always use the full official name of things but rather a short, commonly used one. So for example we have European Convention on Human Rights rather than "Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms", Soviet Union instead of "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics", BBC instead of "British Broadcasting Corporation", etc.

The more important thing though is that it is convention not to include the definite article in a title. We don't have "The President of the United States" or "The" anything else so it shouldn't make a difference if the definite article happens to be in Irish. The official, formal way of referring to the guards is to use an as the definite article rather than the, but this doesn't mean you bolt on the definite article in circumstances when you wouldn't otherwise do. So my argument is this:

• An article title shouldnt begin with the definite article.
• An article title should not, anyway, always be the most formal, stuffy term.

Iota 19:32, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Agreed the use of the definite article is to be discouraged. Djegan 19:44, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's not the easiest of cases this one. Usually I would favour leaving out the definite article in an article title, but since people talk (in English) about An Garda Síochána, leaving the Irish article in there as an integral part of the name, it would seem that the underlying grammatical reality that an just means "the" is best sacrificed to common usage in choosing where to put this article. However, people don't always say "An Garda Síochána" — plenty say "the Garda Síochána". Even their own website is inconsistent on this. From the welcome page: "Welcome to the Garda Síochána Website", "...all aspects of the Garda Síochána organisation." Then on the FAQ page we have: "There are 11,747 members of An Garda Síochána", but further down on the same page: "How do I join the Garda Síochána?" We also have an original quote from 1922 by the first Commissioner: "The Garda Síochána will succeed not by force of arms or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people." It seems to me that while the definite article is often included, people don't stick to it rigidly, so as far as I am concerned it need not be considered an integral, unchanging part of the name. I'm marginally in favour of moving the page to Garda Síochána. — Trilobite (Talk) 21:54, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I too agree with moving the page. There's no reason to keep a definite article in the title. -- Necrothesp 01:26, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Is anyone going to object to renaming the article? If not I'll try and find an admin to do the move. Iota 17:53, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

• An Garda Síochána → Garda Síochána – "An" is just the definite article ("the") in Irish and shouldn't be included in the title. Seems to be a rough consensus at the moment. - Iota 03:37, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~

• Support Use of the definite article is unnecessary and not generally Wikipedia policy. Necrothesp 10:57, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Support move to Garda Síochána, definitive article should be avoided. Djegan 18:24, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. It isn't a rule that the definite article should be avoided. FearÉIREANN 21:23, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Weak support, as per comments below. Alai 23:52, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. It just sounds weird without the 'an'. If speaking in Irish, the definite article should most certainly be present. Maybe that's why I think it sounds funny in English - Pete C ^(talk) 14:20, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Support. See my comments above, and what others have said. — Trilobite (Talk) 17:49, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Voting closed

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

I believe a "user-level move" is possible, but perhaps it's better to wait and see who else rows in. I don't think the rules are exactly clear even for English language definite articles, so there's plenty of room for interpretation. I'd somewhat favour a move (back) to Garda Síochána, broadly. Alai 03:48, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Support a move to Garda Síochána. Use of the definite article is unnecessary and not generally Wikipedia policy. Admittedly, I'm English not Irish, but I've never heard the force referred to as anything other than "the Garda" anyway. -- Necrothesp 10:57, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I suspect the most common vernacular usage is "the G(u)ards", even. "An Garda Síochána" is not uncommon on RTE -- but equally, RTE is the type of broadcaster that likes to throw in the occasional phrase, sentence or paragraph of Irish pretty much out of any real context, so they're rather a usage law unto themselves. Alai 15:21, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Support move to Garda Síochána, definitive article should be avoided. Djegan 18:24, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oppose. It isn't a rule that the definite article should be avoided. It is the unnecessary use of it. Ireland has a newspaper called the Irish Independent. However the is not part of the name, so the article is named Irish Independent. However the Irish Times has the definite article in its actual title. So it, correctly, is in as The Irish Times. The Guardian has the definite article in as part of the name of the paper, so it correctly is in as The Guardian, not the Guardian. Án Garda Síochána is the name, meaning The Civic Guards. It is part and parcel of the name. The collective group of individual policemen in the force is Gardaí. But the force as a unit is The Civic Guards/Án Garda Síochána. There is no special reason in this case to drop the definitive article when in plenty of articles here we haven't when the definitive article is part of the official title. FearÉIREANN 21:23, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In the title of a book or newspaper or film we would keep the definite article. They are a completely different case (we italicise them too - it's an accepted convention). The title of an organisation does not need it. Therefore it should not be included (and where it has been the article is usually moved to remove it - any articles that still have it have usually been missed). The use of definite articles in the official names of organisations is usually pretty random at best. Even the Garda themselves don't seem sure, if you look on their website. This is usually the case. If you think about it, most organisations appear sometimes with a capitalised definite article, and just as often without - it would just be silly if we kept all of them and it isn't done in any other encyclopaedia that I've ever seen. -- Necrothesp 23:07, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Note that titles of "works" (including newspapers) are a stated case in which the "the" is always retained, if part of the title proper. But organisations are much less clear cut, and "the precedents are mixed". There was considerable resistance to "The" Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who're a lot more consistent (indeed, insistent) on this than are The Guards. See the naming conventions. Alai 23:48, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have to say that Nec's arguments I find hilarious. The argument that we keep the definite article in newspapers and films but not in other things is mindbogglingly nonsensical. It implies that wikipedia believes that it should get newspaper and film titles accurate but insists it is OK to be inaccurate on topics. That is so absurd it is funny. It is also not wikipedia policy, as Alai correctly points out. Precedents are clearly mixed.

As to the reliance on websites - what is this strange idea by some on wikipedia that websites are a reliable source on anything. Some time ago there was a discussion over correct names on wikipedia for some prominent historical, political, sporting and religious figures. The mantra of 'but google says . . . ' was trotted out so a group of us checked out the names of 50 prominent figures with google searches and compared the results with objectively verifiable accurate sources. Of the 50, 47 were 'proven' by google searches to have names that are 100% wrong in reality. Among the names websites got wrong are the surname of the Prince of Wales, the full names and titles of his two sons, details on the presidents and prime ministers of Ireland, prime ministers Gladstone, Campbell-Bannerman and a host of others names of popes, names of members of world cup-winning teams, names of famous actors (and also, astonishingly even the name of a rather prominent film was shown in a later search to be spelt completely wrong all over the net!).

Many of the worst offenders were official websites. Buckingham Palace's website is littered with historic inaccuracies about royal history. The Vatican website got information about some popes wrong! The Irish government website famously last year got the name of who was the first Irish head of state wrong. One British police website misspelt the name of its own Chief Constable. A teaching union website spelt 'teacher' at one place as 'teachir'. An official website about the FA Cup some years ago got the date and location of the final wrong and spelt the name of three of the players incorrectly. The White House website was littered with inaccuracies - I got bored and gave up counting after finding 10 elementary ones. Frankly I take most things on the web with one helluva bucket of salt. Unlike hardcopy sources, most websites aren't proofread for factual accuracy, spelling, and many are frankly loopy. One guy in the last few days doctored a lot of wikipedia pages to claim that Ireland doesn't have four provinces!!! If other sites copied though wikipedia articles at a time that his garbage had been planted in, there could be 5, 10, 50 or god knows how many websites replicating his fiction as fact. If it get replicated enough of times, and people believe google searches then many people could end up being complete garbage about how many provinces Ireland has. So please! Come up with something more substantial than a gross misrepresentation of wikipedia policy on definite article use and utterly unreliable websites. FearÉIREANN 00:44, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Mindbogglingly nonsensical" or not (and I would say it was not at all nonsensical, but that's just my opinion), you will find it is almost invariably the case in encyclopaedias and other reference works and indexes that "works" keep their articles and other things do not, unless they are vital to the understanding. In this case, the definite article is not vital and should not be used. That of course is merely an opinion. I never stated it was any form of Wikipedia policy, and was therefore not "grossly misrepresenting" anything (and find it to be rather a strange accusation that I was). Neither did I say I placed any reliance on websites - I merely used the example to show that usage is very mixed. However, since this is a vote on whether we should move it or not, it's actually our opinions that count. -- Necrothesp 22:38, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Three points:

• The practice of leaving out the definite article in things other than 'works', as Necrothesp puts it, is a desirable one and followed almost universally. Jtdirl/FearÉIREANN suggests that leaving out the definite article is incorrect. My interpretation would be that in the many, many articles that omit a definite article where one might be included a reader would regard the definite article as implied.
• Convention is in any case to use the commonly used title, not the strictly correct one.
• The English definite article is more commonly used than the Irish one anyway. In official sources both definite articles are used. The 1923 law that established the force calls it "The Garda Siochana".

Iota 19:33, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Just to argue both ends... the gist of the rule of whether to include the definite article in the page name seems to more or less come down to "would it be capitalised in running text?" Doing a quick google for "an garda", there's plenty of instances of this being done. But that doesn't really speak to Iota's point as to whether it's even included consistently/commonly. Alai 03:43, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am a disinterested party to this debate, I have never heard them called anything but the "Garda", I have tried to copy votes up to the vote section. If I have made a mistake please fix it so that the vote does not misreprsent the postions held. Philip Baird Shearer 13:42, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Decision

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. violet/riga (t) 20:16, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ranks of the Gardaí

The Garda Síochána Act, 1972 allows the government to make an order determining the ranks and maximum number of each such rank. The most recent is that of 2000[1] as far as I am aware. Prior to this the various acts where used to determine the ranks and number in a similar way, for instance[2] [3]. The lowest rank was "Guard" which now corresponds to "Garda", also of note is that the Gardaí had "Officer" and "Non-Commissioned/Men" divisions. The act of 1958 allowed the entry of women, but made no changes to rank structure. Djegan 20:49, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Garda Síochána Act, 2005

The Garda Síochána Act, 2005 will significantly amend the law regarding the gardai. For instance it will allow the creation of reserve members (which is causing some controversy), a code of ethics, revised complaint proceedures, also their is an declaration on appointment:

"I hereby solemnly and sincerely declare (before God) that—

• I will faithfully discharge the duties of a member of the Garda Sıochana with fairness, integrity, regard for human rights, diligence and impartiality, upholding the Constitution and the laws and according equal respect to all people,

• while I continue to be a member, I will to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge all my duties according to law, and

• I do not belong to, and will not while I remain a member form, belong to or subscribe to, any political party or secret society whatsoever."

Many of the previous acts are being repealed, and indeed this act in many ways is simply a restatement of the law. Statutory instruments will remain in force until revoked.

Djegan 22:10, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Badges of Other Police Services

I think badges of previous All-Irish and Northern Irish police services should be in another article as they are not pertinent to the Garda. Jm butler 21:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

agreed - they are irrelevant to this article 213.202.134.172 10:49, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Garda Failings Section

The Gardai article in general needs a bit of work.

The Garda failings placement in section is questionable as no other Police or Law enforcment article has a similar list of failings. It reads like Joe Duffy radio broadcast! I may make a bold move and remove it to another article entirely. Any thoughts?

Conor 13:51, 23 January 2006 (UTC) (Forgot to Sign in)

I agree the article requires work to give it a more unified structure, the iterative process of editing on wikipedia does have its drawbacks.

Regarding the failings of the force, this would have to be approached with caution. Removal altogether may look like intolerable censorship, whilst a new article may only underline the issues to thye extreme or risk sounding like a series of crackpot conspiracy theories that can be all to evident against other similar organisations (but an appropriate article on each scandal maybe appropriate to deal with them properly).

Ultimately all police forces have their good and bad days and generally the gardai have served the state, and its people, well.

Djegan 19:26, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The issue is not censorship, it is providing a balanced article. I think this article shoud aspire to be more consistant with other police articles on Wikipedia.

See the following for more details.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Police in France

Police system of Japan

British police

I feel there is an over emphasis on the failings section. For a police force that been in existence such a relatively short time there is too much text (a full quarter) on very recent scandals. The much larger British policing article does not grant as much space to its controversial shootings section, arguably a much more important policing issue. Indeed that is the only other Policing article I have found that has a similar section.

For the sake of uniformity and a more balanced article the failings section should removed, given a seperate article or reduced dramatically.

Comments?

Conor 11:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not against removal as such, but removal may require some additional subsiduary articles; this would be best implemented on each significant scandal or failing rather than a single over arching article? Certainly other wikipedians may have other ideas and their response would be useful here. Djegan 18:57, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Other police articles on Wikipedia do include sections with names like 'crticism' and 'controversy'.

Drug Enforcement Agency

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Policing in the United Kingdom

I'm not sure about the section title. Allegations are unproven statements. Unproven statements should not be included in Wikipedia just the facts. This section is a bit messy. If you think about the factual negatives around the gardai, they can be categorised under mistakes, conspiracy and organisational problems. Mistakes would include the many famous crime scenes they failed to preserve like sophie du plantier where they allowed their main suspect to leave prints on everything instead of sealing off the scene(do they not watch crime shows on TV?), screw ups with warrants such as the judge curtin case and the Dermot Laide mistrial, that case where two sets of cops showed up at a bank robbery and opened fire on each other etc etc. Conspiracy would cover cases like McBrearty and the grangegorman murders frame-up. Organisational problems owuld include the time they went on strike by all ringing in sick on the same day. Also in here would be the failure of the PULSE and penalty points systems.

Also we need a section on the new volunteer force. Curtains99 00:21, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I Agree, the other entries for Police Forces around the world don't seem to concentrate on failings. I would suggest that in the interest of fairness, this section be removed. (Sam, UK)

i agree i feel that the section of the abbylara shooting fails to display a neutral point of view in suggesting there is a shoot to kill policy. even the barr tribunal didn't suggest this!~~

[edit] Caution

Not too sure how to place this in the text, but the caution used by the Gardai is defined by the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1997 (Section 6) Regulations, 1997:

"You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence."

Djegan 23:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The caution as worded above comes from The Judges Rules which are a set of guidelines issued by judges in the early part of the 20th century. It is not listed in any law. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.71.24.101 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Badge

According to the official Garda website they dont have a badge,so why is there one here? Sgt baker 18:45, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

That is interesting. Per the Garda.ie FAQ [4]:

The uniform of the Garda Siochana does not have badges and patches like other Police forces. Accordingly badges and patches are not available from the webmaster.

However, the term "Garda Badge" in the context of the article refers (not to the cloth badge as such), but to the emblem displayed on the flash. Further, though the garda FAQ does not refer to it directly, the Gardaí do wear metal badges on their caps [5]. I think what we have here is simply a definition issue between the term "badge" (refering to cloth representation of the emblem) and the "emblem" itself. ("Garda Badge" is often used to describe the emblem/symbol. See History of The Garda Badge.) Guliolopez 18:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bangharda

In the Terminology section, it states that bangharda is not used much anymore; garda or guard being preferred. I have found the opposite to be true and woman officers always being referred to as bangharda. -Etienne 02:18, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Colloquilly maybe but not officially. All guards are guards. Bangarda is sometimes used in conversation, like fireman instead of fire-fighter, but now only a knickname.Afn 17:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• It's kinda been deprecated. The official term is 'garda', these days, regardless of gender - Alison^✍ 18:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ned Garvey

The article says the following: 'Edmund Garvey Sept 1975 Jan 1978 replaced unfair dismissal'. Can anybody elaborate on this? Is it coincidental that Fianna Fáil had recently returned to government? Just why did Fianna Fáil make an election pledge to remove that particular individual when they returned to office? I cannot imagine Ahern make such a promise about Noel Conroy today. Why is it so hard to find online the reasons for his dismissal? The story in newspapers some years ago was that he was in the pay of British Intelligence. In particular, Liz Walsh, writing in Magill, did an exposé on him in the April 1999 issue covering the death of Séamus Ludlow. There was an interview with Fred Holroyd in it where Holroyd said, "Garvey knew the information he was giving me was going back to MI6 because he was aware that I was a conduit for that organization. At one of the meetings he handed me photographs of 200 republicans from the IRA and INLA to take back." The web has an abundance of allegations all of which have the same end: that Ned Garvey was in the pay of British intelligence. Here are some of them: http://www.villagemagazine.ie/article.asp?sid=1&sud=41&aid=790; http://www.relativesforjustice.com/publications/monaghan.htm; http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=62498&comment_order=asc&save_prefs=true&fontsizeinc=2; Thu, Aug 14 2003 'Troubling questions to be raised on Dublin bombing' ['Ned Garvey, who was sacked in 1979 by Jack Lynch for reasons that have never been explained, although speculation exists that Lynch believed Garvey had close links with MI5 since 1974'] ('Southern Star' on Unison website). El Gringo 21:01, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coverage Map

The coverage map in the infobox seems a little confusing to me. Yes I know it covers the Republic of Ireland, but having Northern Ireland on there as another shade of green seems potentially confusing. Maybe it would be better if Northern Ireland was coloured in a shade of light grey as seems standard for geographical maps of this sort. Ben W Bell talk 11:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Image:GardaSíochána.PNG part of a series Category:British police maps with a consistent design style. Totally inappropriate for this article, of course. A modified Image:Ei-map.svg with just colour, no symbols or text, would be better: if we need such a map at all? jnestorius^(talk) 00:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

No arbitrary cities or towns anyway - as its just pov. How about a map showing the regions (as in the article in "Terminology" section), if a good one could be found. Djegan 15:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I made a slight change to this and the PSNI map, didn't notice this discussion at the time. In passing I found that the two shades of green didn't any part distinctive. So I substituted the dark green for a light gray. Hope no one minds.  Keithology  Talk  14:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English

As the "correct" English translation ("Peace Guard of Ireland") is not commonly used, indeed it could be original research, I think it should be a footnote if anything and that the common, but apparently mistranslated "The Guardians of the Peace of Ireland" should be in the main body as it can be widely cited irrespective of correctness. Translation is not a science and often their is variance between languages and direct translation is not always appropriate unless a footnote or a trivial. Djegan 00:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

In one sense "guardian" is altra, the same word as "nurse". Niall Ó Donaill's dictionary translates garda as "guard" and Garda Síochána as "Civic Guard". Similar issues with Sinn Féin (19th century) and "ourselves alone": a lot of people say it, so it must be mentioned, but not condoned. I don't mind how the information is arranged as long as people are not misled into thinking "Guardians of the Peace" is correct, rather than twee Oirishry. jnestorius^(talk) 00:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Abbeylara A crazed gunman is shot down by police after refusing to surrender a loaded weapon he is pointing at people. This would make a four line box in page 27 of a French, German or American(or any where else) newspaper. Here the gunman becomes victim/hero/martyr and the centre of news of five years. If having being examined by Doctors and Psychiatrists he was unwell to the extent that he may have harmed himself and others (beyond his control) they should, one would assume, instituitionalise him for his and others safety. If he was not unwell in this way, then he was in control of his actions and acting out of pique, self pity and or pure badness when he started taking potshots at people. Being without a cigarette notwithstanding.

Sallins It should be noted that the INLA did carry out a robbery on this train. This organisation is explicitly committed to the overthrow of the Republic of Ireland.

Morris A small number of Officers involved

[edit] Emergency Response Unit

Why does the link for the Emergency Response Unit lead to the SWAT page?

We used to have a separate page or the ERU did we now?

fixed! - Alison^☺ 21:37, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --Greg Moroney 14:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)