After 39 years, truth about death of brave garda must finally be told

ON Monday the attention of the nation was focused on two funerals — that of Garda Robert McCallion, who was mown down in Donegal, and Roy Collins, the businessman shot in Limerick.

Ironically that night, RTÉ was re-running the Garda Ar Lar programme on the murder of Garda Richard Fallon in April 1970. Garda Fallon, 44, was shot dead as he and another garda chased armed raiders who had just robbed the Royal Bank of Ireland on Arran Quay, Dublin. He was the father of five young children.

Then Taoiseach Jack Lynch assured the nation that everything would be done to bring “the perpetrators of this foul deed” to justice. The army was called out to assist the gardaí. “Helicopters and scout planes swept overhead as armed patrols checked vehicles along the border to stop any escape into the North,” according to press reports next morning.