Talk:Garda Síochána/Archive 2

Informality and OR
The article currently says: It is known, in decreasing order of formality,[citation needed] as An Garda Síochána; the Garda Síochána; the Garda; the Gardaí (plural); the Guards[citation needed].

The 'citation needed' request at the end has been there since 2012 and has been quite sensibly ignored, presumably because the only part of the sentence that is (or at least currently appears to be) genuinely OR (Original Research) is the 'decreasing order of formality' claim. So I have now added a [citation needed] beside it. The rest of the sentence is not OR because it's the self-evident truth, not a controversial statement requiring a supporting citation. Meanwhile, there is a clear distinction between the other terms and 'the Guards'. The later is entirely informal, and will in practice not normally be heard in formal settings such as RTE News reports (except when quoting somebody's use of the term), whereas all the other terms are basically formal and do get heard in such formal settings. My attempt to mention this clear and important distinction between 4 formal terms and one informal term got immediately reverted as alleged OR (as far as I'm concerned it was not OR, as it was the self-evident truth, but in any case the RTE bit wouldn't be needed in practice without the problems that seem ultimately created by the 'decreasing order of formality' claim). The reverter was seemingly in such a hurry to get rid of the alleged OR (instead of first requesting a citation, as normally recommended in cases of alleged OR), and while leaving the actual OR, that he or she initially forgot to give an explanation for his or her revert, and Acting Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan initially got herself deleted as well. Fortunately he or she eventually noticed and corrected this, but left part of my change to give 'and most informally the Guards', so I removed 'and most informally' to leave the article as it was originally, with the explanation "removing my 'and, most informally', as now redundant once the self-evident truth about RTE News is deemed OR (we're already told they're in decreasing order of informality, which, incidentally, really is OR),+ it would also need a comma". There was no space to spell out that the comma would be needed after 'most informally'. But in any case it's redundant unless one gets rid of the 'decreasing order of formality' claim. (which I'm going to do shortly).

Meanwhile we are currently left with 2 [citations needed] that will probably continue to be ignored, plus a highly questionable and unsupported claim about decreasing order of formality, plus no mention of the basic distinction between 4 formal terms and one informal term. And attempts to fix this situation, which has seemingly existed in one form or another since at least 2012, seemingly get promptly reverted.

So I felt that before I try a proper fix, I should first try to explain the problem here, in the hope that would-be reverters will at least consider my arguments before reverting.

I think the sentence should simply read: It is variously known as An Garda Síochána; the Garda Síochána; the Garda; the Gardaí (plural); and, informally, the Guards.

As far as I can see that fixes the problems I have mentioned above. Quite likely somebody can find some Wiki rule as an excuse to revert, but my justification for making the above change rests on the above arguments, plus WP:IAR, one of the 5 pillars of Wikipedia (Ignore All Rules if they prevent you from improving the encyclopedia). Tlhslobus (talk) 13:54, 12 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The CN tag is for "gaurds" see edit history. Your edits of as its not used by RTE is OR, and to deny that its OR ("as now redundant once the self-evident truth about RTE News is deemed OR") is pure misguiding. And then to throw over 3600 bytes on a talkpage because your OR got reverted? Why? Why not do what the tag needs instead? Murry1975 (talk) 14:27, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

First, your assertion (here and in your revert description) that I am 'throwing the toys out of the pram', and that I wrote 3800 words solely because I was annoyed that my alleged OR had been reverted, implies that I don't believe what I wrote, and as such is a violation of WP:AGF. I am a fallible human being like everybody else, so I may be mistaken, but I genuinely believed every word I wrote, and, per WP:AGF, you are not entitled to imply that I didn't - so if you persist I will presumably have to report you. However, with the benefit of hindsight, I now think it was perhaps a mistake on my part to mention some things (such as your initial deletion of Noirin O'Sullivan, my unnecessary defence of my RTE edit as I don't intend to persist with that particular attempted change, and so on), and I apologize if any of these mentions caused you any unnecessary distress, confusion, or whatever..

Second, your revert has ensured that the problems I mentioned above remain unfixed, and your implicit view that they are not genuine problems but merely 'throwing toys out of the pram', etc, will, if persisted in, ensure that they will remain unfixed, which as far as I'm concerned disimproves the encyclopedia, though we may end up having to agree to differ on whether or not it does.

In case you're not too clear what problems I'm talking about, I summarized those problems in my last post as: Meanwhile we are currently left with 2 [citations needed] that will probably continue to be ignored, plus a highly questionable and unsupported claim about decreasing order of formality, plus no mention of the basic distinction between 4 formal terms and one informal term. And attempts to fix this situation, which has seemingly existed in one form or another since at least 2012, seemingly get promptly reverted.

We arguably now have a partial solution for the 'formal and informal' bit, but it is very far from the ideal one, involving redundant wording (the last item is necessarily the most informal if they are in descending order of formality, which anyway is OR), and no clear indication that the others are all fairly formal. And the other problems remain.

Third, the CN now appears to an ordinary reader such as me to relate to the entire sentence, or to be capable of so relating. At the time it was created it was at the end of a paragraph, so it could also have related to the entire paragraph. The edit history says nothing about it referring to 'the guards' rather than the entire sentence or paragraph. The editor, Kwekubu, a person from Ghana now living in Ireland according to his user page, simply writes 'Soource for this?' (a bot later added a date to the CN). He has made no further edits to the article nor said anything on its Talk page. The sentence and paragraph have changed considerably since he made the request (although it did already have 'in descending order of formality'), so it is possible that what he wanted cited is no longer there, and it is also possible that he no longer remembers what he wanted cited. But I'll be asking him anyway. The Edit history is as follows

13:53, 21 February 2012‎ Kwekubo (talk | contribs)‎. . (54,175 bytes) (+8)‎. . (→‎Terminology: source for this?) (undo | thank)

The paragraph at the time was: The full official title of the force is rarely used in speech. How it is referred to depends on the register of the speaker. It is known, in decreasing order of formality, as An Garda Síochána (An pronounced [ən]); the Garda Síochána; the Garda (in the preceding names, Garda "guard" is a collective noun, like police); the Gardaí (Irish pronunciation: [ˈɡaːɾˠd̪ˠiː] [GAR-DEE]; "guards", plural); or the Guards.Empty citation (help)

However, assuming for the sake of argument that you are right that it only refers to 'the Guards', then I am genuinely puzzled as to what it's doing there. Citations are only needed for controversial statements. We do not have to provide citations for 'grass is green' and millions of similar statements of the self-evident truth. And, to the best of my knowledge, it should be self-evident truth to almost anybody who has lived in Ireland for any length of time (as I have for nearly 50 of my 60 years) that ordinary Irish people (including me, among millions of others) frequently refer to the Gardai as 'the Guards'. So I would be both a bit surprised to learn that this is what the CN is about, and unsurprised that nobody has realized that they were being asked to look for citations in support of the fact that Irish people say 'the Guards', for the same reason that I'd be surprised to be asked to look for citations to support 'grass is green'.

So are you in fact saying that the only thing wrong with that sentence is the lack of a citation for Irish people saying 'the guards', and are you asking me to go looking for such a citation? As far as I'm concerned there is plenty wrong with that sentence, as spelt out in my 3800 words, but the lack of such a citation is not one of them.

Are you also saying that we should delete 'the guards', as nobody has produced such a citation since 2012 (which is what is supposed to happen with justified CNs after such a length of time - of course, I don't accept that such a CN is justified in relation to 'the guards', though I think it's fully justified in relation to 'in descending order of formality')? Of course if it does only refer to the guards, then it's an unjustified CN and should be deleted. I had assumed it really referred to 'in descending order of formality', which, even without all the additional justification from WP:IAR, would fully justify deleting 'in descending order of formality' after such a length of time (as I tried to do, before getting reverted by you for allegedly 'throwing the toys out of the pram'). Tlhslobus (talk) 17:04, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

As per above request, I've now added an RS citation for The Guards, even though it may not have been what was being asked for two years ago, and is totally unnecessary (grass must be green, because an academic in Chicago says so), conforms to a standard that would require wiping out something like 90% or more of both this article and of the rest of Wikipedia if it were to be consistently enforced, is probably the sort of infuriating and time-wasting nonsense that causes editors to quit Wikipedia in droves, and quite likely is also the sort of nonsense that brings Wikipedia into disrepute among the general public. It is also not one of the things that require citations under template GATable/item|2b|?|, ("it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines"), though no doubt other rules can be found to support the requirement (to which I replied with WP:IAR, one of the 5 pillars of Wikipedia, but got reverted anyway). But I guess all that's just the nature of Wikipedia.

Meanwhile it does at least allow me to have a clear distinction between 'the guards' and the other terms, to get rid of the redundant duplication of 'informal', and to get rid of one CN (=[citation needed]) that has for more than two years being damaging the article (and encyclopedia, as per WP:IAR), by causing readers unfamiliar with Ireland to have to doubt everything in that sentence without knowing that everything in it is utterly uncontroversial, except the 'decreasing order of formality'.

I would like to now simply remove that 'decreasing order of formality' on the basis of Tlhslobus (talk) 11:25, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Amazing that a single citation request two years ago could generate such an amount of text. For posterity, my edit originally referred to the whole "decreasing order of formality" claim, not just the phrase "the Guards". --Kwekubo (talk) 10:28, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the useful clarification, Kwekubo. Maybe your confirmation that "decreasing order of formality" has in effect had a CN against it for 27 months may now allow me to delete it without getting reverted.Tlhslobus (talk) 01:47, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. And, by the way, sorry about the 'wall of text'. But it wasn't really caused by your citation request, but by a related edit dispute 27 months later. And such disputes frequently result in even longer walls of text, perhaps because disputes are often even harder to resolve if people don't spell out their position sufficiently clearly and in adequate detail (which often requires a wall of text or two). Some have even claimed that concision has been a contributory factor in causing real wars, such as the Ems Telegram in 1870, and the Austrian ambassador's concise reply to Serbia ("Unacceptable!") in 1914 during the lead-up to World War One. Noam Chomsky also claims that demands for concision are a weapon in the arsenal of supporters of the status quo, and that concision is a luxury not readily available to those trying to make changes (as I was here). But let's not generate another wall of text about all that :) Tlhslobus (talk) 02:39, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Wrong doing (again again)
I have shorted both sections relating to Barr and Morris and Smithwicks tribunals. They already have their own pages which can be read in detail if desired. The parts I have left are sufficient for a reader to understand what happened and the resulting decisions. There also appeared to be minor vandalism in some sections with "From behind" added for no reason and how much a retired Gardas pension was worth! I have left the remaining 3 under "Mishandling of cases and complaints" as they were short enough.

I have also removed reference to Gardai ignoring gay bashing, the source is no longer available and google searches suggested it was simple a blogger expressing an opinion without fact.I have left the turban issue but am unsure of the reason for its inclusion. Was it really controversial or an allegation of wrongdoing?

In relation to abuse of power, a small third paragraph that merely mirrored and linked to indymedia has been removed. It proves nor adds to the section however Mayday 2004 I would suggest deserves a mention, I have made a small start.

Similarly, I have removed unproven allegations from other parties in full, if we go down that road we may as well include every complaint ever made.

The Corrib section includes a lot of conjecture and information not relevant. How much Corrib costs and how much Shell paid is included for what reason?Also, do Gardai call the road "The golden mile"? Proof please? In fact, the two links backing up this part is blank and doesnt exist. So removed I think for the same reason as above, we cant possible include every unproven complaint ever made. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.57.161.41 (talk) 19:48, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Also, this section makes up nearly half the entire page with the GSOC area alone matching the entire section on acts of bravery. If complaints and allegations are included, shouldnt evidence of good?


 * Hi anon. As you note, there has been much discussion over the years about how best to deal with this topic - with consideration to the project's guidelines relating to balance, POV and undue weight. As you note, it wouldn't be appropriate to "include every complaint ever made", but we also need to be careful about using "slippery slope" type arguments to manage content of this type. (As it happens, this section is pretty heavily managed, and has been very aggressively summarised from previous incarnations. So I'm not sure a "slippery slope" type argument is really appropriate). Personally, I'm inclined to agree (as I've argued for some years), that the bulk of these areas should be covered in the relevant sub-articles. And covered in summary in this article. Lengthy "coverage" of these topics at an article at this level causes issues wrt WP:UNDUE guidelines. However, this doesn't give licence to swing excessively in the other direction either - certainly not to the extent of "blanking" larger sections entirely. For that reason (and as it was frankly very hotly discussed at the time), I've restored a summarised version of the "Corrib" section. (You seemed to indicate that you removed this section because some cites were now missing/moved. I've added webarchive links to address any issues in that area.) Happy to have a further discussion about summarisation if needed. Let's talk it through here however, as project mores would suggest, before doing large scale "culling". (Looking forward to it) Guliolopez (talk) 01:11, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I accept that large deleting should be avoided but at present we now once again have an article that seems to simple paint a picture of corruption. I again repeat, each allegation has a link to its own section, arent we just duplicating the allegations now? Is this an article about the police force or its failings? No other police forces entry is so heavy with allegations. The NYPD and London MET to name just two, have a far more proven and lengthy history of corruption yet barely a whisper on their pages.


 * Also, the Corrib article didnt contain old links, it contains only one link to Indymedia. Indymedia has already been stated as an unreliable option and was largely written by one person (Who it would seem insists on its inclusion here). I would once again ask for proof that Gardai refer to that section of road as "The Golden mile". Theres no proof and its inclusion just points towards Wikipedia as being an unreliable database of hearsay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.57.179.2 (talk) 21:11, 24 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Again, I don't disagree that the section could be improved. In general I would wonder wonder however if this is the best time to be doing it (given the recency of the Guerin Report, Smithwick Tribunal and other elements this section). That aside however, I definitely don't think that we should be culling items for "precedence", "verifiability" or "reliable sources" issues. Specifically:
 * You mention precedence for this type of section in equivalent UK or US articles. I would note that the Law enforcement in the United Kingdom article has an expansive equivalent section, and there are various articles covering the topic for the US. Granted these are not exactly equivalent articles, but there is plenty of precedent for including at least some content in these types of articles.
 * You mention the reliability of the IndyMedia source. The IndyMedia source is used purely to support a comment that an incident was first reported on IndyMedia - before then being substantially "picked up" by other more mainstream outlets. There are plenty of more main stream reports on this, so I don't think there's a strong argument here to remove on that basis.
 * You also mention the verifiability of the Corrib "overtime" attribution. This claim is made directly in the linked Irish Times article. If you think it should be reworded from "alleged" to "alleged in an Irish Times article", then that would be OK with me. But I'm not sure there's a case for removing entirely on a WP:VER basis.
 * In any event, while I don't think there is a case for wholescale culling on a precedence, WP:RS or WP:VER basis, there possibly is an argument to be made (or discussion to be had) for addressing some of the WP:CFORK or WP:UNDUE issues. In addressing those issues, I would recommend that, instead of entirely removing content (to shorten the section), that we look at places where a topic/incident is covered in perhaps three or four sentences. And, where it is dealt-with elsewhere, summarize to one or two sentences instead. This is how this was handled originally - when originally substantially scaled-back the content from a previous version. Happy to hear your thoughts or specific suggestions on where we might do this. Guliolopez (talk) 13:18, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I stand corrected on the Corrib sections overtime part however I still fail to see why its mentioned at all, Gardai claim overtime just like most workers and so far none of the complaints have been upheld, its not really relevent in my opinion. In the Mayday section however your links are not mentioned, only one which is number 40 and that points to an Indymedia article. The article in question is labelled "Garda goes beserk". I would suggest thats not backed up by the media or court records where the Gardai in your link were actually found not guilty. As the article states, only one Garda was found guilty and that was for minor assault. I would suggest removing the Indymedia link and replacing it with one or both of yours.

Notwithstanding those points, I dont believe the UK law enforcement section has as much failings in it. Under 'issues' it talks about pay and other complaints raised by the police, not against the police. Of course it could be argued that AGS is just that bad but I dont think thats the case rather people have made it their mission to mention every possible grievance.

A smaller section which mentions the complaints and links to them should be adequate in my opinion but I leave it in your hands as I notice that most of the comments or sections I felt required attention have either been edited or altered by either yourself or another editor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.57.179.2 (talk) 21:31, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Who is eligible to join the Gardai?
What are the eligibility requirements to become a member? Does anyone know? Must one be an Irish citizen?

194.72.83.86 (talk) 18:39, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

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Audio pronunciation added
I have added an audio file to the pronunciation of Garda Síochána, as per a request on this Talk page. I have now removed the request template Joe byrne (talk) 18:20, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Update Garda structure
Seems that the Garda updates its organizational structure in 2018.

https://www.garda.ie/en/About-Us/Organisational-structure/Organisation-Structure-2018.pdf

Ominae (talk) 13:43, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Italics
Why are "Garda" and "Síochána" written in italics on some appearances in the article? Stifle (talk) 14:22, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

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New Deputy Commissioners
Shawna Coxon, who has been deputy police chief in Toronto for over three years, will fill the vacancy about to be created when Deputy Commissioner John Twomey retires.

The second position in the Garda at deputy commissioner level has been vacant for some time. Acting Deputy Commissioner Anne Marie McMahon was expected to be appointed to be formally promoted on a full time basis to that position. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/senior-canadian-police-officer-set-to-become-deputy-garda-commissioner-1.4480061 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter K Burian (talk • contribs) 15:09, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Should this be included in the article?
How about including this:


 * The "Garda Síochána na hÉireann" (in English - "Guardians of the Peace of Ireland")


 * "Garda Síochána" is not the Irish for "Guardians of the Peace", and "Guardians of the Peace" is not the English for "Garda Síochána" - the Irish language has singular and plural definite articles, and the singular definite article is the only article ever used with the name of the organization - "AN Garda Síochána" - just like "the Coast Guard", the "Garda" is a singular noun, not a collection of individual "guardians". (There are further, more detailed grammatical reasons why this folk etymology is nonsense, but the difference between singular *an* and plural *na* is one of the first things that an English speaker will be taught when learning Irish).


 * The correct legal name of the force in English is "the Garda Síochána". (See earlier references to the original Acts of legislation from 1923, 1924 and 1925 in the "Name of the force" section). While the "na hÉireann" is present on the badge, it is not part of the legal or common name of the force. You can translate "Garda Síochána" as "Peace Guard" if you think that it's necessary to provide a translation, but the name of it's immediate historical predecessor "the Civic Guard" might be more appropriate. It is extremely misleading to suggest that "Guardians of the Peace of Ireland" is ever used as the English language name of the force (by anyone who hasn't looked it up on Wikipedia, at least). Part of the job of members of "An Garda Síochána" is indeed to act as "guardians of the peace", but there is simply no linguistic or historical justification for the statement "(in English - "Guardians of the Peace of Ireland")" - it is simply not true. - 108.52.189.30 (talk) 20:46, 29 April 2021 (UTC)Elstar108.52.189.30 (talk) 20:46, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The phrase used in the article is "the Guardian of the Peace". Which is a singular, is it not?Boardwalk.Koi (talk) 13:44, 30 April 2021 (UTC)


 * The introduction uses "the Guardian of the Peace", but the body of the article changes this to "the Guardian(s) of the Peace" while citing a source that said "the Guardians of the Peace" - I can't find any justification for the modification of the cited source in this way. The cited source is factually incorrect, (it's a "folk etymology" of some sort), but if linguistic accuracy is the motivation for modifying the cited source, even allowing for the (very) dubious translation of "Garda" as "Guardian" rather than "Guard", "the Guardian of the Peace" is a genitive phrase, and the linguistically accurate translation of the genitive phrase is *Garda na Síochána* (using *na* as a singular genitive article, because "Síochán" is a feminine noun). Instead, in "An Garda Síochána", "Síochána" is being used as an noun attribute of "Garda", as though it was an adjective (adjectives come after their nouns in Irish), i.e. "the Peace Guard". Either use the cited source, pointing out the linguistic issues  or provide a linguistically correct translation. Instead, we have a worst-of-both-worlds outcome, that is both linguistically inaccurate AND is not reflected in the cited source.


 * The key question really is: what is the purpose of the the "meaning" qualification? The public do not refer to the force itself, or to the members of the force as a "Guarduan" or as "Guardians". The members of the force are routinely referred to as "Guards", as the the article body acknowledges, because the English for "Garda" is "Guard", not "Guardian". The Irish for "guardian angel" is "aingeal coimhdeachta", the Irish for "legal guardian" is "caomhnóir dlíthiúil", whereas "security guard" is "garda slándála". Tearma.ie does suggest that Plato's "Guardians" can be translated as "Garda", but their role in Plato's society was not the role of policeman. If the purpose of providing a "meaning" for the Irish phrase is to provide a translation for people who don't speak Irish, there doesn't seem to be much point in giving an inaccurate translation that doesn't even reflect the actual usage in Ireland, all for the sake of a half-nod in the general direction of a citation that isn't quite good enough to be left unmangled. 108.52.189.30 (talk) 16:44, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

http://www.policehistory.com/garda.html Peter K Burian (talk) 13:33, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Irish is the first official language of the Republic of Ireland and English is the second official language. Every member of our police force must be suitably qualified in both languages.
 * Thanks for the edits of content I added today, @User:Guliolopez. I agree with the revisions. What are your thoughts about the two points above? Should I add them to the article? Peter K Burian (talk) 15:31, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi . No problem. In terms of the above, I wouldn't recommend including it. Not in that format at any rate. As, technically, I don't think it's accurate. Per the Gardaí's own recruitment/educational requirements FAQ, recruits must have "proven proficiency in two languages; one of which must be Irish or English". Note that this states "Irish or English". Not "Irish and English".
 * As far as I am concerned the requirement to prove proficiency in Irish was removed nearly 15 years ago. While, under the Garda Act 2005, the organisation actively recruits and trains members for proficiency in Irish, it isn't a requirement. Not any longer. (See "Irish Times - "Irish no longer a requirement to join An Garda" - Sep 2005). Guliolopez (talk) 16:51, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Peter K Burian (talk) 23:41, 11 July 2019 (UTC)