Garda Sergeant Patrick McLoughlin was my granduncle. I never had the opportunity to meet him. He was shot dead at his home in Co Meath in April 1983 when two men came to his house in Dunboyne at 4.20am.

They rang the doorbell continuously, waited for him to appear at the top window and shot him in the head.

Today, the memories left by a dark night 32 years have returned once more. “It never really leaves you but when we heard about the [Garda Tony Golden] shooting, it brought everything back for us,” says his son, Niall.

“It has never been easy but the last few days have been difficult. It is days like the last few days when you remember what an incredibly difficult job the gardaí have to do and what a tough job my father had.”

Aged 14 at the time, Niall had been asleep downstairs the night his father’s killers came because he was going to the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse a few hours later. “I woke up to the sound of glass shattering.”

Sgt McLoughlin’s wife, Dolores, and the couple’s three other children woke to the sound of breaking glass, followed moments later by the sound of the killers speeding off on a motorbike.

Old scores

Callers to the McLoughlin home, particularly late at night, were not unusual. Sgt McLoughlin lived next to the Garda station and people often called when they needed help.

This time, however, was different. His killers, Joseph Greene and Thomas McCool, wanted revenge. They had both been arrested in the past by the sergeant and wanted to settle old scores.

They rang the doorbell continuously until he put his head out the window to see what was going on. They shot him in the head and left shoulder before they fled. They were caught by gardaí within hours.

Niall remembers: “I ran upstairs and there he was, lying there. My mother had watched the two men leave on their motorbikes. I ran in next door to the Garda station. There were no mobile phones then.

“I ran in and rang the local doctor and he came out to the house. That was early Saturday morning. He died two days later in hospital.”

Patrick McLoughlin was the ninth member of An Garda Síochána to be killed. The toll has since risen to 88 with the death of Garda Golden.

“We were all very young. I was the oldest. I was 14. Ruth, Hilary and Mark were younger than me. I can remember my mother having to tell us that he was in heaven now. It just never seemed fair,” Niall says.

By all accounts Sgt McLoughlin, a man I never knew, was a helpful, unassuming man. My grandmother, Patricia, says her brother was a dedicated, diligent member of the force.

“He loved his job. He always tried to look past the summons. He would catch somebody doing something and offer them a second chance. He worked so hard. Nobody could ever doubt how much he loved his profession.”

Shooting

Up until the day of the shooting – April 9th 1983 – the McLoughlin family had lived a normal life. The murder changed everything for them. He was only 41 when he died.

The latest grief to afflict a garda’s family reopens old wounds, Niall says. “It never really leaves you but when we heard about the shooting, it brought everything back for us.”

In early 1983, Sgt McLoughlin had applied for promotion to inspector and attended an interview just days before he was killed.

The two men who shot my granduncle escaped charges of capital murder because he was not officially on duty. Thomas McCool served seven years in prison and Joseph Greene, who pulled the trigger, served 11.