King of quiet thrust into spotlight

NOEL CONROY didn’t have much time to savour his appointment as incoming Garda Commissioner last May before reality soured the moment.

Three days after Justice Minister Michael McDowell announced his elevation to the highest office in the force, the same Minister brought him back down to earth by publicly demanding a full report from him on how a bunch of heroin addicts could be photographed by an apartment dweller in Temple Bar shooting up in broad daylight while gardai issued parking tickets yards away.

But it would take a lot more than an incident of bad timing to faze the 60-year-old Mayo man who has already given two-thirds of his life to a job where predictability is a luxury.

Conroy joined the Garda Siochana in 1963 when society was rebelling against the old authorities of church and state and when the timebomb of Northern Ireland was ticking rapidly towards explosion.

Forty years later, he is set to serve out his time in another period of change, thanks to the cyber-crook and the international dimension to organised crime, and when society’s expectations of the force have shifted up a gear.

In between times, he has plugged away at a steady pace, approaching his work with a measured, thorough approach more dogged than dashing.

Conroy hails from Aughleam, a village about 12 miles from Belmullet on the dramatic north-west Mayo peninsula lapped by the waters of Blacksod Bay on one side and lashed by the Atlantic rollers on the other.

It is a breathtakingly beautiful but isolated place where a man could holler and yell all he liked and nobody would hear him. Some say the lesson stayed with Conroy all his life as he is the undisputed king of quiet in a secretive outfit where anyone who courts publicity is guaranteed exposure by a grateful media.

Although he has spent most of his life in Dublin, he and his wife, Mary, return regularly to Mayo where the original homestead is still maintained by one of Conroy’s sisters.

In his free time he follows the Mayo footballers and likes a day at the races where he will always put a few bob on a horse.

It would be wrong, however, to think of him solely as an uncomplicated, inconspicuous individual chosen as a safe option who won’t outshine or outshout a Minister who has grand, and controversial, plans for the force.

He is also a very capable and demanding officer who has had a long and distinguished career with detective branches all over Dublin, dealing with the worst that inner city criminal culture, gangland brutality and paramilitary volatility has to offer.

In 1981 he was awarded a Scott Medal for bravery for his role in the arrest of an armed gang and the following year he headed the team which arrested Malcolm Macarthur.

His new role will inevitably put him more in the spotlight. McDowell’s proposals for change will include the creation of a Garda inspectorate to handle complaints against the force and will confer on the Commissioner the duties of accounting officer, making him personally accountable for the force’s annual budget and expenditure.

He will also have to deal with the conclusions of the Barr and Morris Tribunals, the hangover of a disappointing PULSE computer system, an aging garda vehicle fleet, poor garda accommodation and low force morale.

He has five years to take the heat before he comes to statutory retirement age. The peace of the Blacksod peninsula could look even more appealing by then.