The Phoenix Park in Dublin is a place of great beauty and joy. Sadly, though, it has also been the scene of tragedy and trauma.
“It is a city park at the end of the day,” says Declan Bermingham, the park’s horticulture foreman. “You really never know what you’re going to come across.”
An employee of the Office of Public Works (OPW), which manages the park, Bermingham moved three years ago from the “noise, buses and traffic” of Blanchardstown in northwest Dublin to the “total, night-time silence” of the Kitchen Garden Lodge in the park.
He and his partner Fidelma share the Cotswolds-style, beige-brick, two-up two-down lodge within a walled orchard with a pretty planted garden and working beehives. It is on the grounds of Áras an Uachtaráin, residence of President Catherine Connolly.
It’s also an old, protected structure with single-pane windows.
“It is beautiful, but very hard to heat in the winter,” Bermingham says.
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He pays rent to the OPW. In return, he is contactable round the clock.
“A constant presence of OPW staff is fundamental to the functioning of the park,” says the Phoenix Park’s chief park superintendent Margaret Gormley.
Governed by bylaws set out in the 1925 Phoenix Park Act, the park needs people in situ to ensure the rules are being upheld.
The rules include a prohibition against fires being set in the park, while driving on grass is also not permitted. Additionally, the park’s 600-strong wild deer population must not be chased, disturbed or injured.
The 1,750-acre amenity, with its 11km perimeter, is open to the public 24 hours a day every day of the year through multiple road and pedestrian routes.
“It benefits me and the park for me to be here because I can react quicker to situations,” says Bermingham. “I can be on the scene to assess and call the right people.”
Declan Bermingham at his home, Kitchen Garden Lodge, in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times
Recalling Storm Éowyn in January last year, he says: “That was a big event and it was good to be on site that day. I couldn’t move out of the house until the weather warning was over, but when I got out there was a lot of damage.
“No staff could travel in for hours, so as soon as I could move, I was doing a list of what needed to be done – clearing trees, checking for damage to trees, roofs. Once the staff got in, we could get roads clear and sites opened up again and make sure it was safe for the public to come in.”
Bermingham manages planting, tree care, evolving biodiversity policy and garden maintenance in the park and in nearby OPW-managed properties. As well as this, he could be called at any hour to deal with an alarm going off, a fallen tree blocking a road, a car crash or, distressingly, a suicide.
Terry Moore is a colleague and neighbour who lives on the other side of the park. Moore is head ranger and deer keeper. He has lived in the Deer Keeper’s Lodge for a number of years with his wife and their children.
“I was in Ballymun before, so it is a change,” he says.
His home, of lime-plaster and horsehair with Tudor-style windows, has three bedrooms and an acre or so of land.
Purpose-built in the 1800s for the keeper of the then-royal herd, its venison outhouses retain their meat hooks and ventilation flaps, but are now used to store bikes. There is also a “house”, which was used in the past for injured deer or fawns.
Park ranger Terry Moore with his dog Lucy in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times
Moore is in charge of 12 rangers. Between them, they cover shifts from 6am to 11pm seven days a week.
“We look after the whole park . . . The rangers are here to observe, report and make sure the park is running safely and that everyone is safe and having a good time,” says Moore.
Two rangers “minimum” are needed in the mornings and nights “to get the park opened and closed”, he says. Though pedestrian entrances and the main vehicle gates at Parkgate Street and Castleknock are always open, side entrances for vehicles open at 7am – “there’s always a queue of cars waiting” – and are locked at 10.45pm.
“Then we open the institutions – the walled garden, the people’s gardens, the playgrounds. We check on them all, make sure there’s no overnight damage, sort things if there is any problem.
“There are a couple of hundred big events in the park each year,” says Moore. “Concerts, sporting events, Bloom, Darkness into Light, running events, cycling events. They all mean roads being closed, roads reopened, routes being inspected, all trees on routes being inspected.
“And after [the events are finished], we inspect to make sure everything has been put back the way it was.”
Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, until December, will mean “rolling road closures” when events are hosted at Farmleigh House or Áras an Uachtaráin.
There is a humanitarian aspect to the team’s work.
“On a daily basis, we check areas where homeless people might be, to make sure everything is okay. We ask how they are getting on and we’d communicate then with the Dublin Simon (which operates a rough-sleeper outreach),” says Moore.
Gormley says rangers recently were aware a young woman was being sexually exploited by an older man with whom she shared a tent. “The rangers engaged with her a number of times, talked with Simon and they got her accommodation so he couldn’t get near her.”
Attempts by The Irish Times to speak to homeless people in the park were unsuccessful. Evidence of people sleeping rough was visible far into fenced off areas, with discarded sleeping bags, blankets and empty food containers.
“At the moment, there are about four homeless people in the park and they’re not here long term,” says Moore. “People sleeping in their cars used to be a regular thing, but not so much now.”
Part of the job, he says, “unfortunately is coming across tragedies”. Rangers have been provided with training to deal with the trauma of being first on the scene of a suicide.
“We have a procedure. First and foremost is to call Dublin Fire Brigade and the guards. They take over and we’d stay just to make sure the scene is safe.”
Moore recalls one “happy outcome” where he was on patrol with a now-retired colleague. “We saw a fella acting erratic, moving around. When we looked closer, it was obvious he was trying to gee himself up to [harm himself].
“We got over to him and said, ‘ah mate, please don’t do that. Please’. We got on to the services, on to Pieta House and a counsellor spoke to him straight away on the phone. The guards came, ambulance and he went off. He came back a couple of months later and thanked us.”
Both men say living in their place of work can make it “hard to switch off from work”.
Horticulture foreman Declan Bermingham at his home, Kitchen Garden Lodge, in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times
“I was always thinking about work anyway,” smiles Bermingham. “I’d be at home thinking about a tree that needs attention. I love my work and take pride in it. I’m here at weekends and I can have a list of jobs ready for the lads first thing Monday morning. They probably curse me.”
There are restrictions on their and their families’ lives, however. The teenagers in Moore’s household sometimes feel isolated from friends and hobbies, and his wife “has become a constant taxi driver bringing them places and back”.
When park roads are closed for events, friends and family can’t get to them by car, and they cannot leave except on foot.
They have to accept a level of curiosity about their pretty homes in such idyllic settings. “People do look in over the fences, taking photos. The houses function to be ornamental as well,” says Moore.
The nearest shops and public transport links are in Chapelizod village – about a 15-minute walk from Moore’s house.
Their homes come with jobs requiring them to be on-site. But what happens when they retire?
“I presume I’ll get a few months’ notice to get our stuff out,” says Bermingham with a laugh.
Moore wonders aloud if there are any OPW properties in Lanzarote he could retire too.
There are “pros and cons” to living in the Phoenix Park, they say.
“But mainly pros. It is a beautiful place to work and to live,” says Bermingham.