"IT is easy to say: 'Write a book'. It is not so easy to do it. It is exceptionally difficult," Gerard Collins, former minister and MEP, said in Rathkeale on Saturday night when he launched the memoirs of former garda sergeant, Joe Dunleavy.
Mr Collins praised the memoir, A Tour of Duty, as a magnificent work, which, he said, he had read twice – the first time at a rush, the second time to take in the detail more carefully.
And he praised Mr Dunleavy's "tenacity" in spending "endless hours" remembering and recalling detail. That feat was all the more remarkable given that Joe didn't keep diaries.
"What a sensible man he was," Mr Collins remarked to a capacity crowd in Rathkeale Community Centre.
He praised Mr Dunleavy's "courage" in allowing those memories to go public.
Mr Collins also praised the book for the detailed way in which it recorded a different way of life, growing up in rural Ireland in the early 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.
"We are slipping away from all that now, and I say that with regret," Mr Collins said.
He regretted, too, that youngsters today were not exposed to this way of life while at school. There was a life before computers, before DVDs, he said, "a very meaningful life".
But he commented also that at the time Mr Dunleavy joined the Gardai, in 1954, the Gardai were "treated anything but well", and were always regarded as being on duty and as being "objects to be moved about".
A meeting in Dublin, alluded to in the book, led to the Conway Commission, Mr Collins explained, and this was a foundation for the modern police force, "a force that is doing a tremendous job, despite many criticisms, many of them unjust and unfair".
"It is a lovely read," Mr Collins said. "It is an honest, decent presentation by an honest, decent man."
Earlier, Supt Joe Roe, who had served in Rathkeale in the late 1970s when Mr Dunleavy was sergeant there, described Joe as a community policeman when the term had not yet been invented.
"He had a wonderful attitude to public service," Supt Roe continued.
Books like these, he said, "really are history", pointing out that the Garda Siochana had only been established 30 years when Joe enlisted.
A Tour of Duty deals with the history of the times Mr Dunleavy lived through, the culture within the Garda Siochana and the way people lived. It was also a time, Supt Roe said, of huge transition.
"Books like this are important and are going to be more and more important as time goes on," he said.
Local historian Tom Donovan, who helped Mr Dunleavy bring the book to press, said he recognised early on that it was "powerful stuff. There was a long birth, but it is a great record of the times we grew up in."
Rathkeale Community Council officers Noel White, chairman, and Breed Guinane, secretary, also paid tribute to Mr Dunleavy and his involvement in voluntary organisations in the town.
"Joe is very enthusiastsic. He is generous with his time and a great man to give a bit of advice. Rathkeale is very lucky to have Joe," Ms Guinane said.
A Tour of Duty, by Joe Dunleavy, is available in local shops, j15 and j25