Police organisation
An Garda Síochána
Ireland’s national police and security service, governed by the Garda Síochána Act 2005, with the statutory function of providing policing and security services to the State.
At a glance
- Official name
- An Garda Síochána
- System
- Ireland
- Level of government
- National
- Kind of body
- National police force
- Status
- Currently operating
- Official website
- https://www.garda.ie/ — confirmed against the organisation’s own pages on 13 September 2026.
- Facts last checked against sources
- 13 September 2026
What it is
An Garda Síochána is a single unitary national force, and its Irish-language name is the official designation rather than a translation of an English one. Its statutory function is to provide both policing and security services to the State — the two matter, because policing and state security sit in one organisation here where several other countries separate them. The Civic Guard was formed in 1922 and renamed An Garda Síochána in 1923.
What it covers
The State. There is no regional or municipal police force alongside it.
Broad responsibilities
- Providing policing services to the State, as the 2005 Act states the function
- Providing security services to the State
Elsewhere on this site
- Police ranks in Ireland
- The Garda Museum — the museum, archive or collection that holds this organisation’s history
- Who polices what — how Ireland is structured, against other systems
- Official police recruitment destinations — where this organisation publishes its own joining information, and what that page does and does not establish. It is not a list of vacancies.
Where this connects
Roles: Patrol officer.
Institutions: National police.
Sources
Houses of the Oireachtas (Irish Statute Book) · Legislation · 2005 · link verified 2026-09-19
THIS RECORD WAS RE-READ AND RE-ADDRESSED. It previously cited the enacted-text address and described the content as read through a web search service’s copy of the page. That address now serves, but what it serves is the Act's landing page, and none of the propositions below was readable there. The Statute Book's own onward link goes to the Law Reform Commission's REVISED (consolidated) text, which is the address now cited and which carries them. THE ORIGIN FACTS ARE NOT IN THE ACT: that the Civic Guard was formed in 1922 and renamed in 1923 comes from An Garda Síochána's own history page and is attributed there, not here. Supports: that An Garda Síochána is the national police service governed by the Garda Síochána Act 2005; that its statutory function is to provide policing and security services to the State;. Supports the unitary national character of the force; it does not support any operational detail. Stated as sourced facts.
An Garda Síochána · Institutional (self-description) · link verified 2026-09-13
SCOPE: An Garda Síochána only. The force's own about page, read directly. Supports the official name 'An Garda Síochána' — which is the Irish-language name and is itself the official designation, not a translation of an English one — and that garda.ie is the force's own site. CORRECTED on 2026-10-10: this record also cited the force's self-description as "Ireland's National Police and Security Service". Neither this page nor the site's English home page serves that phrase to a direct request any more, so it is no longer claimed from here; that policing and security sit in one organisation rests on the statutory function in ie-garda-act-2005. The page carries NO statement of the establishing statute or of jurisdiction; those rest on ie-garda-act-2005. Establishes nothing about any other force.