Irish Examiner view: Pillar of Irish life adapting to new crime

The role of visible policing is an important component of public confidence

Garda commissioner Drew Harris speaks during a ceremony to mark the opening of the garda station in Athlone, Co Westmeath. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Much of the attention in this year of centenaries has focused on the political leaders, Michael Collins principal among them. But it is right, also, to link the creation of An Garda Síochána with the volatile and rapid changes of that period, and recall that Collins was instrumental in its introduction.

By some coincidence, organised, uniformed policing in Ireland can be dated back a further century, to 1822, and the establishment of the regionally-based ‘County Constabulary’, which grew out of the Peace Preservation Force (PPF) under an 1816 Westminster Act sponsored by Robert Peel (who was then chief secretary for Ireland).