Garda Reynolds was shot in back and bled to death on stairs
NEARLY 40 years ago, five unarmed gardai from Tallaght Station responded to what they thought was an “ordinary run of the mill” call.
Little did they know they were about to walk into a hail of gun fire which left one dead, and the others traumatised by the ordeal.
The ordeal would have long lasting consequences for the survivors due to a total lack of support from the State, no justice for the murder, and incredibly, no counselling services were available at the time.
“We got nothing at all, nobody gave a s**t,” said one of the gardai who was at the scene that night to The Echo.
“The front page of the Sunday Press had pictures of the birth of animals at Dublin Zoo. We were mentioned in a small paragraph on page four or five.”
At approximately 1.30am on February 20, 1982, an anonymous phone tip led four gardai – Patrick Reynolds, Leo Kenny, Patrick O’Brien, Thomas Quinn and detective Michael McMahon – to a block of flats (now demolished) at Avonbeg Gardens.
Inside the flat, armed men were counting the proceeds of a bank robbery. A struggle ensued and Garda Reynolds (23) was shot in the back and bled to death on the stairs.
The chief suspect, Belfast man, Sean ‘Bap’ Hughes, was tracked down in France in late 1982. Extradition proceedings dragged on for years and were eventually rebuffed by France. After serving time in a French jail on false passport charges, Hughes was deported.
In 1997, Hughes was captured by an off-duty garda after robbing a Bank of Ireland in Foxford, Mayo. Hughes was tried for the capital murder of Garda Reynolds in March 2000, but the court did not accept the prosecution case against Hughes and he was acquitted of the murder.
He had previously been sentenced to eight years for the bank robbery in Foxford, but only months after the murder trial he was released under the terms of the Good Friday agreement.
It seemed implausible that DNA from the scene at Avonbeg did not lead to Hughes being convicted for the murder of Garda Reynolds.
“I was told by a reliable person, that there was a lot of people missing, up North, two people were killed in Paris, and Irish politicians playing footsie with them,” said the retired garda, who did not wish to give his name due to the pain he still feels today.
All of the surviving gardai suffered greatly with the trauma, and sadly Leo Kenny, a married Greenhills father of three, died in 2000.
“Poor Leo Kenny. I still think of Patrick Reynolds every day. We heard the shouting, I saw the flash of the gun, poor Pat fell down. Politics threw it aside, they twist things.”
The pain was exacerbated by the lack of coverage in the media.
It was a busy weekend as a General Election had just been held, and Ireland’s rugby team would win the Triple Crown against Scotland in Lansdowne Road on the Saturday.
Garda Reynolds was to attend this match (which Ireland won 21-12) with his brother, sister and some friends, later that day, after he finished his night shift.
“I remember Jim Mitchell (former FG Minister) and Garret Fitzgerald (then Taoiseach) called out to the old station in Tallaght, and I let fly at them, they left us to hang and dry,” said the retired garda.
Cllr Charlie O’Connor (FF), was at the time, just starting out in local politics, but got involved in efforts to support the gardai.
“I knew Patrick Reynolds, he used to call into Springfield quite often. He was a motorcycle garda. A lot of us of that generation remember Patrick well and the shock and upset in the community. From what I can recall, he was well liked and well respected,” said Cllr O’Connor.
Cllr O’Connor contacted the Reynolds family in Sligo, and with their permission, started the Inter-Tallaght Community Games.
“It ran from about 1982 to 1999. I got to know the family quite well. We got a lot of support from gardai locally and nationally. They would facilitate us by sending out a garda band every year and we also arranged a mass,” he recalled.
Garda Reynolds and Kenny (posthumously) were awarded the Scott Gold Medal in 1982.
However, the lack of counselling was to have serious effects on the mental health of the surviving gardai, and the burden took a heavy toll on Garda Leo Kenny, who died in 2000, just before he was to speak at the trial of Sean Hughes.
The Echo contacted the Garda Representative Association in regard to the establishment of counselling services but received no reply.
A spokesperson for gardai said the launch of it’s ‘Keeping Our People Supported’ campaign, in May 2021, saw the introduction and strengthening of additional health and wellbeing supports for personnel.
Currently, gardai can access a range of supports such as 24/7 confidential counselling service, occupational health service and more recently, specific psychological supervision and supports.
Members also have access to a 24/7 Wellbeing App, and a Garda National Wellbeing office.
In the 2018 Report of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland (CoFPI), over 5,200 garda personnel made it clear that a more proactive approach to health and wellbeing is needed across the organisation.
It is a far cry from the non-existent supports available to gardai in 1982.
“There was no such thing as a welfare officer, at the time there was somebody with the Dept Justice, who was supposed to be a liason, but you never saw him,” said the retired garda.
Speaking at the launch of the campaign in May, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said: “Our people really are our greatest resource. It is important that we challenge the stigmas associated with mental health and instil confidence in our personnel that they will be treated with dignity and respect, whatever their situation may be.”
