NEW LIFE:Pauline O'Grady Noonan took early retirement after a 25-year career with An Garda Síochána to travel to the Gambia as an aid worker

WHEN PAULINE O’Grady Noonan was offered the opportunity of going to the Gambia as an aid worker, she refused to let her commitments as a wife and mother-of-two hold her back. Her solution was to pack up the whole family and bring them with her for four months.

She had just taken early retirement from An Garda Síochána after 25 years of service and was offered the placement in the Gambia as part of a degree in international development for which she was studying.

“I felt I had to live it myself to understand it. We lived in a compound in very basic conditions with no running water and sparse electricity.

“The only food available to us was eggs, potato, flour, onions and rice. It was hard going, but the work was fantastic and the experience really opened all of our eyes to the extent of the poverty there,” she says.

When O’Grady Noonan qualified as a nurse at 23, she never saw herself staying in the same career for the rest of her life, but she could never have imagined where her path would take her.

After five years of nursing, she applied for An Garda Síochána in 1982 and within 18 months, she found herself working as a plain-clothes officer in the divisional drugs squad in Cork city, a job she thoroughly enjoyed.

“I was involved in a lot of cases of importance in Galway, Limerick and Cork and built up huge experience in court, preparing DPP files and giving evidence under pressure, which was great for my confidence.”

Ten years later, she married Detective Garda John Noonan and with plans to start a family, she left the drugs squad. She was promoted to sergeant in 1982 and worked in Ballinhassig and Rathduff over the next five years.

It was around this time that she decided to start a two-year diploma in international development at night at University College Cork. Her twins, Grady and Jack, were in primary school at this stage and she felt she should take advantage of living in a university city.

When the position of sergeant-in-charge of the traffic corps at Anglesea Street in Cork city centre arose, O’Grady Noonan went overnight from being in charge of one man to overseeing 22 staff.

“It was the start of the introduction of penalty points, it must have been one of the most undesirable jobs in the world to be sergeant-in-charge of the traffic corps at that time. Luckily, I was blessed with a marvellous childminder locally and the support of my husband.”

In the meantime, UCC wrote to her to say it was starting a degree course in international development and she decided to enrol.

She recalls: “It was a full-time day course and for the first two years, I did my full-time job with the traffic corps as well. It was horrendous. I went straight from work to lectures. I didn’t see my kids, and my husband had to take over the household.”

During the second year of her degree, O’Grady Noonan set up an NGO called Cairde Kenya with college friend Beni Oburu, who told her about a rehab centre for little girls in north Kenya whose families had been wiped out by Aids.

“A group of us fundraised to take 41 children from the centre to Mombasa to see the sea for the first time. My husband and son and daughter, who were 13 at the time, all came and it was a huge success.

“The little girls got to stay in a hotel and learned how to swim. The conditions they lived in at the rehab centre were so basic, there was no running water or electricity. Jack and Grady wanted to bring them all back to Ireland with us.”

By third year, she was totally exhausted and knew that something had to give. She was at a crossroads and decided to take the international development road. With 25 years in the Garda Síochána and five as a nurse under her belt, she was entitled to take early retirement, which she chose to do, and home life gradually returned to normality.

Her husband John also took early retirement from his job as a sergeant-in-charge and now works from home as a claims manager for Quinn Direct.

When the placement in the Gambia came up in 2007 through the Gorta-affiliated NGO Agency for the Development of Women And Children (Adwac), O’Grady Noonan was told she could bring her children, and the whole family moved over for four months. They fundraised for a month before the trip and were overwhelmed by the support they got from friends, family and their local community in Whitechurch, Co Cork.

“I was involved with women vegetable growers who were growing inferior vegetables and selling against each other in markets. I come from farming stock in Clare, so it was very easy for me to get in on it. We researched the quality and quantity of vegetables and the demand, and while I was there, the women formed a co-op.”

Meanwhile, the twins were keeping themselves busy teaching computer skills to children in the local secondary school, and John spent a month there, also teaching basic computer skills, to the staff.

“It was a place you were better off to be busy because the heat was unreal. I also worked in the local clinic because of my nursing experience. I realised I had more in my first aid bag than the doctor had in his whole clinic,” says O’Grady Noonan.

“Malaria was rife and our house turned into a mini-clinic come evening time. The twins became proficient at giving cold compresses and John brought over a suitcase of Solpadeine and antibiotic cream to treat the malaria. We learnt a bit of the local language, Mandinka, so we could give people some basic advice.”

Since that amazing experience, O’Grady Noonan has graduated from her degree course and is now back working on a master’s degree at the Centre for Sustainable Livelihoods at UCC, which is due for completion by Easter 2010.

“I don’t miss the guards after 25 years, but they have given me great confidence and made me what I am, and I am very grateful for that. I would love to work with disadvantaged, marginalised members of society, maybe with Travellers or foreign nationals,” says O’Grady Noonan. “It will always be my goal to continue to work abroad on projects as well, and next summer, we may all go back to Africa. I think there’s no point in just giving our kids a Trócaire box to fill at Easter and that’s it.”