Garda Síochána
police service of Ireland
An Garda Síochána (Irish pronunciation: [ənˠ ˈɡaːɾˠd̪ˠə ˈʃiːxaːn̪ˠə] ; meaning "the Guardian(s) of the Peace"), more commonly referred to as the Gardaí (pronounced [ˈɡaːɾˠd̪ˠiː]) or "the Guards", is the national police and security service of the Republic of Ireland. The service is headed by the Garda Commissioner, who is appointed by the Irish Government. Its headquarters are in Dublin's Phoenix Park.
Since the formation of the Garda Síochána in 1923, it has been a predominantly unarmed force, and more than three-quarters of the service do not routinely carry firearms. As of June 2025, the police service had 14,525 sworn members (including 302 sworn Reserve members) and 3,669 civilian staff. Operationally, the Garda Síochána is organised into four geographical regions: the East, North/West, South and Dublin Metropolitan regions, in turn broken into divisions, districts and sub-districts.
The service is the main law enforcement and security agency in the state, acting at local and national levels. Its roles include crime detection and prevention, drug enforcement, road traffic enforcement and accident investigation, diplomatic and witness protection responsibilities; it also provides a community policing service. Special units exist for specific areas of work such as organised crime prevention, migration management and cyber crime, and there is a central Garda Technical Bureau, a mounted unit, and a canine unit. The service has its own college.
“Garda Síochána” enters the record as police service of Ireland. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Garda, Síochána and police can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1366959. VIAF identifies the subject as 144259764. The Library of Congress control number is n81120301. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1923 and 2025.
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This entry incorporates text from “Garda Síochána” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.