Towards the late 60s, there was a slight change in the Department of Justice’s approach to employment. This involved non-Garda personnel taking over more and more clerical duties. The theory behind this was to free up Garda members for purely Garda operations. With the introduction of this “cracking of the ice” between civilian and Garda members working in cohesion, personnel started arriving at Wexford Garda Station. These were employees mainly from the civil service in the greater Dublin area.
Siobhan Freeman
Around 1970 or so, two or three women arrived at Wexford Garda Station (WGS) of which one of them was a Siobhan Freeman, who was originally from Arthurstown, in the south of Co. Wexford. As a young child myself, going into the Chief’s Office to meet my father, I’ve kaleidoscope memories of Siobhan. Even to a four-year-old, this woman was scintillatingly attractive, like one of those supermodel Swedish women announcing all the different bands and acts on the Eurovision in chronological order of that period.
She instinctively dressed for Monaco or Milan, not Roche’s Road, Wexford town! Every day was a catwalk day, and she was wasted inside a mundane, dimly lit Chief’s Office. It would be the same as entering a McLaren F1 into a field hot-rod race where all the other competitors’ cars had no straight panels as they went about bunching into corners and pushing each other off the dirt track – perilously.
To a four-year-old me, eyeliner, high heels, and even low tops meant the same as camel’s feet — nothing! But there was a real attraction here that I could sense; it wasn’t even a male or female thing — it was a type of nobility. Nobody told me she was amazing looking; it was just radiating outward from this higher being. If you’re blind and deaf but stand near a fire, you don’t have to be told it’s warm. It’s the very same as floating on your back in warm, crystal-clear Caribbean waters — you instinctively know you’re consumed by something much greater than yourself, and it feels surreal.
‘What she had fur dinner’
Having a pint with my parents years later in Gaynor’s, Ma would exclaim, “That one’s tops are always very low — ye can nearly see what she had fur dinner.” Da and me would be looking the other way, holding our sides at hearing this. Oh lort. Ma was deadly serious, which made it even funnier! Then both Da and I would start talking about the weather, like, “De ye think it’ll rain tonight, Da?” “Ah no, it’s a quiet old time now,” smirking into his pint — probably!
The Chief’s Office in W.G.S. would periodically percolate its way into our conversations — and of course Siobhan would follow. “What kind of a woman was she, Da?” I would enquire.
Da commented, “Oh Brian, she’d get ye crucified and burned at the stake all at once. Looks-wise she was absolutely world-class eye candy; office-wise she needed a wheelchair and anti-amnesia tablets.” He continued, “Sometimes I’d need a stiff Jameson to cope, good God! Erra, we were feckin’ killed with her — with all the young guards about, she was like honey to starving bees. Sur we were no more prepared here for her than an old dog in a manger, leave so.”
Da continued, “Ah sure, we cudda wholesaled testosterone fur goodness sake. Twas a semi-private upstairs office that got gradually clogged with young males enquiring about the most insignificant and trivial of things — total circus. If I left, it would have turned into a Hugh Hefner Playboy outfit fairly quickly!”
“Along with all of this, she was flirting with half the feckin’ population between here and Wicklow. That’s Wicklow in Iceland, not Ireland,” as he chuckled. “Nuther two half ones and a pint fur himself there, and two new mats! – cheers!
Cam-a-Saki?
If they had a loud and fast motorcycle, you’d just see the blonde hair blowing under the helmet as they sped away from the station after work. “Twas de furst Cam-a-saki I ever saw — I think it twus a Japonese bike or sumthin!” Da exclaimed.
“It’s Kawasaki, Da, not Cum-er-suki!”
“Yea, that’s what I said — Cam-a-Saki?”
He’d drive ye mad sometimes.
“Ah get lost, will ye.”
Much to our amusement, a beady-eyed Ma would interject, “The fellas always go for the blonde, not the brunette. She’s always made the best of herself!” Da would then turn away from Ma and grin at me; I’d get up quick and go to the little boys’ room just to laugh it off.
Sergeant Pete Callaghan
During this same period, there was a Sergeant Pete Callaghan in charge of the day-to-day running of W.G.S. Diligence was his middle name and he probably thought he couldn’t be done without — don’t we all? Again, the uniform was a big part of who he was — obviously he joined at a young age. Like, who am I to judge this man? I’ve never put a uniform on my back — ever — unless it was a clown suit. I’ve donned countless amounts of them, more than I care to remember!
Pete lived beside us in the other Garda house (No. 3 Roche’s Road), and being from the west of Ireland, went on holidays there periodically.
Ma told me, “Their Volkswagen Beetle would be packed to the roof with bedding, kids, and his wife would be in the passenger seat waiting! You’d swear they were never coming back again.” Callaghan would go back into the office for something and stay in there for hours, leaving his family huddled outside without any timeline at all. He was like a bloody rabbit going in and out of a hutch full of females with blue-arsed-fly intent about him.
She continued, “He couldn’t delegate anything — he thought he was ‘Atlas’ to the whole station!” In some ways he actually was the backbone of the ordinary to-and-fro of the day room.
A revised overtime sheet
With Callaghan’s serious work ethic, huge amounts of overtime had to be processed via the Chief’s Office on his behalf. On one particular month, Da saw these incredible amounts of hours that had to be signed off by him. Fearing that the Dept. of Justice wouldn’t believe the audacious amount of hours, it was decided to break up the hours over a few months. The averages would sit better on paper at least. With this, Callaghan submitted a revised overtime sheet for that month, including fewer hours that would be more palatable to the department’s taste buds.
An abandoned Wexford Garda today as it being turned into a different breed of public service vehicle. Notice the top middle left window, that was the ‘Chiefs Office’ and beside the were two semi-detached ’private’ houses of which the corner one closest was our old house from 1968 – 1973.
With both time-sheets in hand — because Da needed the original timesheet to credit Callaghan in the months ahead — he headed out to lunch. The paperwork remained on his desk. When he returned, all this paperwork was missing in action! Siobhan gathered it all up like scattered leaves at a pond side and bundled the whole lot off, irrespective of contents, to the Dept. of Justice.
Da’s blood ran cold
Da’s blood ran cold. This was probably his career gone now as his mind started to race. He told me droplets of sweat started to drip onto his shirt collar and the whole office seemed like an oven at 200 degrees.
Two time-sheets had been sent in for the same person, same calendar month, with wildly different hours on them. “I’m busted now,” he mused. “I’ve signed off on both.”
Da said, “Brian, at this stage — I’ve six children, a wife, a mother-in-law, a dog (don’t know which one is worse, the dog or the mother-in-law), and one income that I’m probably going to lose now because of this mistake!” He continued, “I’m sat there in the office alone, with my head in my hands, contemplating what the hell happens next”.
“Added to this”, he said, “I had just built a new house with a new mortgage to go along with it. Reaching around behind me, I opened the office window and a cool blast of fresh air streamed in — it felt like Our Lord’s breath.”
Da with all his extra ‘mouths’ to feed in May 1974 at Avalon, Newtown Road. (L to R – Joan, Michael, Tim, Brian, Da, Ma, John and James)
A Week of Stress
A week of stress passed, then the return post from the Dept. of Justice arrived in stamped, headed, and threatening paperwork — “Do Not Bend” in stamped red ink on both sides. Plus the A5-sized brown torpedo was also red wax-sealed, KGB style.
The bones of the internal content read:
“There are two timesheets enclosed here with alternate hours contained in this transmission from your office and signed off by you. Which one is the correct one?”
From Da’s perspective, questions don’t get any more rhetorical than these ones.
Unprecedented Times
These were unprecedented times — the IRA were probably at full tilt, militarily speaking, as they bombed all about them. Da commented that Jack Lynch (An Taoiseach) at the time did bloody well to steer the country away from all-out civil war.
The industrial unrest plague was spreading, Middle East oil crisis, unemployment was rising, so for Da to lose his job at this juncture would have been his Hindenburg moment. I can just see that famous helium-filled balloon tethered to the ground by a solitary string as it arched head-first upward, with a few thin helpless black silhouettes looking on.
All this happened around 1974/75, and Da’s Chief at that time was Sean Shortt, an absolute gentleman. So Da went in and consulted with him about this predicament.
Now, Sean was not only Da’s boss but a trusted friend, a highly educated man with a humorous twist. Every Monday, Sean and Da played the links golf course at Rosslare Strand, rain or shine. Sean never married and was a great mentor to Da.
He said to Da, “Ah Mick, I don’t care because I’ve the thirty years punched! The pension is in the bag,” chuckling at KGB paperwork. Sean had an incredibly cool head under pressure, and even his presence would have had a calming, almost therapeutic effect on those around him.
Either way, between the two of them, they decided they would send in the original timesheet hours, which were factually correct but harder to believe. The following week, the Dept. sent on a cheque for the overtime, and Da didn’t hear about it from that day to this. Pension and mortgage safe again — just have to dry-clean a few shirts, that’s all.
Holiday in Rome
My parents on a well earned but very rare holiday in Rome in 1982, ma hated being away from all of us.
Da’s support was far and wide within the public service realm. Some of his greatest friends he never actually met, only over the phone or print medium. Two main ones he spoke of were Joe and Tom, both operating in the D.M.A. in HQ. “What do ye think of this, Tom? How will I handle that guy, Joe?” and so it went on. They were like three bugs in a rug with a common purpose — the greater good.
Quizzing Da about his relationship with Siobhan post-overtime debacle, he commented, “No great change, Brian, really. Early on I realised I couldn’t teach a giraffe how to sing — it wouldn’t work and it would only annoy the poor giraffe!”
In his latter years, I used to pick Da’s brain about his whole career and how it seemed to run very smoothly and what was his secret?
He stopped, lifted a creamy pint glass to his lips, and answered, “No secret, Brian, really — it costs nothing to be nice to someone that you care nothing about.”
Epilogue
Siobhan was the nicest, curviest giraffe I’ve ever seen, and I’m 54 now. Especially in that wild African leopard skin in high heels — it doesn’t get any better. Da said the problem was getting consistent blood flow all the way up to the herbivore head!
He continued, “She could have married anyone she liked, but no — she married an idiot with no prospects, perfectly fitting leather jacket, and a fast motorcycle.” Then she had to leave her great career behind, because at that time, sadly, women had to leave their place of employment once they married.
But anyway, decades later as Da retired, Siobhan turned up to the party in the County Hotel, Anne St., Wexford town. I remember seeing her that night for the first time in years, but it seemed like a far-flung lifetime ago. She was still a beautiful giraffe — not quite as scintillating, but a solid 8! Of course, I’m looking at her with different eyes now at this stage. Her appearance from employment exile that night said more about Da than anything. He had that common touch that even magnificent African giraffes admired.
(Sadly, in June 2025 Siobhan passed away, and this story is dedicated to her and the beautiful colourful memories left in her far-reaching wake. May she rest in peace. Hopefully God will get her out onto the everlasting catwalk, where she always belonged, instead of that old boring admin and Kawasaki bikes leading to nowhere!)
(c) Brian Gilhooly
Read more from Brian Gilhooly on Writing.ie here.
