A Guarded Life

THE GRIPPING MEMOIR OF AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN AND THE POLICE CULTURE THAT TRIED TO CRUSH HER In February 1985, a story made headlines in the Irish national press. An unnamed policewoman was being threatened with dismissal from An Garda Siochana, for having given birth to a baby outside wedlock. Majella Moynihan was 22 years old. Pressured to give up her baby for adoption, she would go on to navigate a garda culture steeped in misogyny and prejudice until finally leaving the force 15 years on. In her memoir, Majella tells her story, from an institutional childhood after she lost her mother as a baby, to realising her vocation of becoming a guard, to the devastating ramifications of being charged with breaching the force's disciplinary rules - for having premarital sex with another guard, becoming pregnant, and having a child. It is also a story of hope and resilience. In the years that followed, despite many setbacks, Majella charted a new path, with vision, strength and focus. In 2019, she received an apology from the Garda Commissioner and Minister for Justice for the ordeal she endured as a young garda in the 1980s. Here she tells her inspirational story.