An investigation is underway after a garda was sent a pig’s head in the post to his home.

The Irish Independent can reveal that the well-respected officer — who is based in Clare — received the severed animal’s head via registered post at his house in recent days.

Garda colleagues and friends of the officer are said to be outraged that he was singled out by an individual in such a manner.
Independent

What’s the point of trying to do something nice nowadays, what with political correctness and that? I sent that pig’s head to the Garda, I was trying to help him out. Gardaí are being forced to retire left, right and center, and pensions have been hit hard. I thought that the man could feed his family for a few days with the head. You can do great things with a pig head. Ungrateful bastard.

It’s like a scene straight out of TV’s The Wire.

A detective armed with a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver shouts to a colleague as he forces a suspect against a wall and cuffs him.

But this was Dublin and not Baltimore. It is one of the stunning images captured by award winning photojournalist Mark Condren in a new book.

It went on sale today for €25 to raise funds for Temple Street Children’s Hospital.

The Guards — Behind The Scenes With The Men And Woman of An Garda Siochana depicts every aspect of their jobs “from the mayhem to the mundane”.

Herald

It’s not at all like anything in The Wire. It’s much worse. First of all, the aforementioned .38 went off by mistake in the Garda’s pocket, creating an effect similar to a ham hock hitting the pavement after being thrown out of a twelfth storey window by blowing his leg to pieces, putting him out of action for at least two years at a cost of €171,000 to the taxpayer. His colleague is undergoing counselling to deal with the shock and trauma arising from this incident, and has taken two year’s paid leave at a cost of €78,000 to the taxpayer. On the way to the holding cell, the suspect in custody was sexually harassed, at a cost of €200,000 to the taxpayer. The female Garda on the desk that night was also sexually harassed, at  a cost of €1m to the taxpayer. Due to an administrative mix-up, the wrong people in custody were taunted in their cells, leading to the suicides of three people not of low socio-economic status, and the continued living of several unloved heroin addicts, at a cost of €52,000 to the taxpayer. A man in his twenties was pulled over by Gardaí on suspicion of drug possession, as he had long hair. When the man went to reach for his phone to call his parents, the armed response unit shot him thirteen times in the head, at a cost of €91,000 to the taxpayer. During a tea break on the night shift, another senior Garda wrecked a squad car by crashing while attempting to force open a huge tin of Maxwell House by driving over it, at a cost of €13,000 to the taxpayer. As the Garda was being cut out of the wreckage, he remarked to his superintendent, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Finally, that night in the station, a senior Garda mistakenly spilled a flammable liquid on a stove flame, burning down the station, several surrounding buildings and killing three civilians, at a cost of €122m to the taxpayer. In a cruel twist of fate, Simon Weston was holidaying in the area and received severe burns to the face, being heard to shout at the time, “Oh for fucksake.” While this chaos was unfolding, the man in custody, since revealed to be gangland figure ‘The Pied Piper’, managed to escape and complete his planned assassination of Y-fronts John, at a cost of €60,000 to Fat Freddie Thompson, and a further cost of €22,000 to the taxpayer.

The Guards: A year behind the scenes with the pigs.