Ms Nóirín O’Sullivan assumed office as Commissioner of An Garda Síochána on November 25th 2014. She became the first woman to hold the most senior police position in Ireland since women were first recruited into the Gardaí in 1959. She is the 20th Garda Commissioner to be appointed since the force was established in 1922.
Following independence in 1922 the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) was replaced by a new police force called the Civic Guard, which was later renamed An Garda Síochána. Dublin was policed by the Dublin Metropolitan Police. That body employed four women who patrolled the streets of Dublin but were not allowed to be members of the police force. The women continued to be employed when the Dublin Metropolitan Police merged with An Garda Síochána in 1925. In 1910 the first female police officer Alice Wells was appointed in Los Angeles in the United States and Edith Smith was the first woman police constable appointed in England in August 1915.
The campaign for the introduction of women police officers in Ireland was led by The Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and Social Workers. The Committee made several representations to the Government. However in 1939 the then Minister for Justice P J Ruttledge dismissed the representations by the Joint Committee. The reason given was the extra financial costs and the perception that ‘he is advised that the agitation for women police is an artificial business without any real roots in the country’. The Committee continued to seek the appointment of female police officers and it was not until 1952 the first breakthrough occurred. That year a recommendation to recruit policewomen was made by a Committee of Inquiry into An Garda Síochána.
It would take another seven years before the recommendation was implemented. The first twelve female recruits were selected and began training on 9th July 1959 at the Garda training school which was then located in the Phoenix Park. The training which lasted for twenty two weeks, was under the direction a female police officer form England. Following training the new female Gardaí were at first stationed in Dublin but were later assigned to various locations around the country. Known as Ban Gardaí they were required to be on duty during daylight hours only unless a woman was arrested at night time.
At the time of their appointment the new female police officers, in common with all public servants, had to resign if they married. This rule, which remained in force until 1973, meant the number of women police remained at a low level. During the following decades the number of female police officers in An Garda Síochána gradually increased and today women members account for almost 25% of the force.
The first female Gardaí passed out of the training school at Garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park in Dublin in the year 1959 On This Day.
Garda Horse by leppre on 2014-03-17 12:11:31
Photo by leppre 
Photo by infomatique