gardaí

Hmmm, must have asked their nearly blind aunties to hem up their trousers, because they are all different lengths. For some unknown reason the twelfth Garda Recruit from the left has had his uniform faded . . . maybe to identify him or single him out from the rest. It would be good to determine names of each and then know what part they played in the history of Ireland. The purpose of "Dress Right Dress" command, is to make a near perfect rank of troops. Then the second command, which does not look like it was executed is to "Cover", behind the man in front, done by extending one's arm, to just touch his shoulder, this makes each rank equidistant from the other. This is typically done for inspection and marching and parades, etc.

There’s a British Pathé video of about the same date (January 1923) showing the Civic Guards in Training. In fact it may even be the same occasion, see from around 00:45.

They only became the Garda Síochána later in 1923, according to Wikipedia. At this point they were still called the Civic Guards.

Sharon Corbet Sharon will you have a look at the British Pate Link please. M

National Library of Ireland on The Commons Fixed.

The upside-down car is, I think, a VW Type 4 - see the air vents on the 'boot' lid and the horizontal light cluster. The car nearest the image is almost certainly a Ford, probably an Escort or Cortina. The hubcaps and round air-vent point towards one of these, I think. The tiny portion of car in the background looks like an early Audi.

Also the damage on the VW with the light cluster on the side nearest the footpath turned by 90 degrees might indicate the area of impact. The scrape marks and dent on the wing of the Ford could also be significant.

www.google.ie/maps/@53.2960965,-6.3092196,3a,80.3y,329.34... Going by the flat roof for location.

Congratulation for your beautiful Album.

There is another photo - catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000307843 17 July 1971 was a Saturday.