• Inspector Matthew (Matt) Minogue
Looking up from a table here in a Dublin restaurant, you are aware that someone has been taking you in. This man who has been watching you without looking at you could as easily glance up from his newspaper to return a waitress’ greeting. He might meet your eye for a moment, and a faint smile would linger. This affable loner slouching here amid the din and the crowd is an exile here in Dublin from his native Clare these thirty years.
Minogue is now fifty-three or so. Dark hair, black yet where the grey hasn’t frosted it, his farmer’s hands clutch the newspaper. He moves awkwardly sometimes, as though undecided where he should be going. By no means photogenic, he has a markedly mobile, expressive face, one that suggests mischief as much as it does anything else . Any religion that he admits to having harks back to the naturalism of the Celts.
Four key things shaped Minogue’s adult years.
1. His coming to Dublin from the west of Ireland.
2. The crib-death of his first infant (son), Éamonn.
3. His close call in a bomb explosion.
4. An unsolicited transfer to the Murder Squad.
Much about him would fool you into believing that he’s a plodding, suburban husband so typical of his generation and rural origins. This suits him just fine: he capitalizes on being taken for a fool, and hiding behind stereotypes. Minogue is fond of a drink but sometimes wonders if he enjoys it a bit too much. He is back smoking after twenty years of abstinence. Minogue’s son works in software development in the US. Minogue particularly favours his daughter Iseult, a wayward artist who is often between jobs. He loves his son Daithi but is puzzled by why and how Daithi continues to postpone coming back to Ireland from the US, where he works in software development.
Astute, relentless, nondescript, Minogue is a grenade disguised as an easygoing Irish policeman.
• Kathleen Minogue (wife)
Early fifties. An organised and practical woman. She’s often puzzled, exasperated and amused by her husband. She is protective of him, considering him over the years to be one of life’s innocents. Kathleen’s a strong woman, too pragmatic and happy with her life to ruminate on life’s meaning. She lives many proxy risks and joys through her husband’s ways. Enjoys being ‘shocked’ by him, loves the indulgences he invents, such as a weekend in Paris. Kathleen took up part-time work when their two children were more or less reared. Kathleen is a devout Catholic but, being a Dublin woman with that in built laser mind for hypocrisy, is not evangelical or arrogant about it. She accepts her husband’s need to be different, realizes that she has little choice. Kathleen has laugh lines and the matured facial features of a coquettish teenager.
• Iseult Minogue (daughter)
Iseult is a tall, black-haired, skinny, pale-skinned artist of twenty-four. She is a rebel. She wears gypsy-style, richly-coloured clothes, home-made jewellery. She has an abrasive tongue, is vivacious and almost statuesque. Iseult approximates to the Irish warrior queen of legend and saga, Maeve - fiercely independent, combative, proud.
Iseult was the child born to the Minogues after the death of their first infant. Kathleen was unable to conceive for several years and Minogue and she regard Iseult as a miracle. Minogue phones her often and meets with her in restaurants. He derives great pleasure from her articulate and witty scorn.
• Daithi Minogue (son) pron. Da-hee (David)
Daithi is tall with black hair, physical and facial resemblances to his dad but his temperament and personality are quite different. Daithi seems intent on fleeing the smallness of Ireland - his future is international, technological. Daithi seems to want to carve out his own life abroad. He has an American fiancée. In 'The Coast Road,' Minogue and Kathleen waltz painfully around admitting to themselves that Ireland's financial crisis means that their son will not be coming home.
Looking up from a table here in a Dublin restaurant, you are aware that someone has been taking you in. This man who has been watching you without looking at you could as easily glance up from his newspaper to return a waitress’ greeting. He might meet your eye for a moment, and a faint smile would linger. This affable loner slouching here amid the din and the crowd is an exile here in Dublin from his native Clare these thirty years.
Minogue is now fifty-three or so. Dark hair, black yet where the grey hasn’t frosted it, his farmer’s hands clutch the newspaper. He moves awkwardly sometimes, as though undecided where he should be going. By no means photogenic, he has a markedly mobile, expressive face, one that suggests mischief as much as it does anything else . Any religion that he admits to having harks back to the naturalism of the Celts.
Four key things shaped Minogue’s adult years.
1. His coming to Dublin from the west of Ireland.
2. The crib-death of his first infant (son), Éamonn.
3. His close call in a bomb explosion.
4. An unsolicited transfer to the Murder Squad.
Much about him would fool you into believing that he’s a plodding, suburban husband so typical of his generation and rural origins. This suits him just fine: he capitalizes on being taken for a fool, and hiding behind stereotypes. Minogue is fond of a drink but sometimes wonders if he enjoys it a bit too much. He is back smoking after twenty years of abstinence. Minogue’s son works in software development in the US. Minogue particularly favours his daughter Iseult, a wayward artist who is often between jobs. He loves his son Daithi but is puzzled by why and how Daithi continues to postpone coming back to Ireland from the US, where he works in software development.
Astute, relentless, nondescript, Minogue is a grenade disguised as an easygoing Irish policeman.
• Kathleen Minogue (wife)
Early fifties. An organised and practical woman. She’s often puzzled, exasperated and amused by her husband. She is protective of him, considering him over the years to be one of life’s innocents. Kathleen’s a strong woman, too pragmatic and happy with her life to ruminate on life’s meaning. She lives many proxy risks and joys through her husband’s ways. Enjoys being ‘shocked’ by him, loves the indulgences he invents, such as a weekend in Paris. Kathleen took up part-time work when their two children were more or less reared. Kathleen is a devout Catholic but, being a Dublin woman with that in built laser mind for hypocrisy, is not evangelical or arrogant about it. She accepts her husband’s need to be different, realizes that she has little choice. Kathleen has laugh lines and the matured facial features of a coquettish teenager.
• Iseult Minogue (daughter)
Iseult is a tall, black-haired, skinny, pale-skinned artist of twenty-four. She is a rebel. She wears gypsy-style, richly-coloured clothes, home-made jewellery. She has an abrasive tongue, is vivacious and almost statuesque. Iseult approximates to the Irish warrior queen of legend and saga, Maeve - fiercely independent, combative, proud.
Iseult was the child born to the Minogues after the death of their first infant. Kathleen was unable to conceive for several years and Minogue and she regard Iseult as a miracle. Minogue phones her often and meets with her in restaurants. He derives great pleasure from her articulate and witty scorn.
• Daithi Minogue (son) pron. Da-hee (David)
Daithi is tall with black hair, physical and facial resemblances to his dad but his temperament and personality are quite different. Daithi seems intent on fleeing the smallness of Ireland - his future is international, technological. Daithi seems to want to carve out his own life abroad. He has an American fiancée. In 'The Coast Road,' Minogue and Kathleen waltz painfully around admitting to themselves that Ireland's financial crisis means that their son will not be coming home.
• Chief Inspector James ‘The Killer’
Kilmartin
Kilmartin looms large physically and as a stereotype of certain Irish males. He’s a bluff, shrewd, tough old-style cop. Community policing, social workers, probation officers - all these earn his sarcasm and scorn. Kilmartin will quickly resort to any means he deems fit to secure leads, suspects and convictions. He is not liked personally by the Commissioner, Tynan, and he’s uneasy about Minogue’s friendship with Tynan. Kilmartin despises Dublin people. He still resents the hiring of Tommy Malone into the Murder Squad. Kilmartin had a melt-down in ‘Islandbridge,’ where, as he wryly mutters in a pub to Minogue later, he turned career into a verb. He discovered that events in his wife’s past – she was the widow of a Guard murdered on duty twenty years ago – has led to her recent, covert meetings with Dublin gangsters. Cleared of misconduct and the possibility of criminal charges, a chastened Kilmartin bides his time on probationary posting to the Traffic section.
• Detective Garda Tommy ‘Molly’ Malone
Tommy Malone is thirty-three - ‘same age as You-Know-Who when he was crucified but don’t go getting ideas that I’d go as easy’. Malone is a dog-rough working-class Dubliner. He still boxes competitively in the Garda Boxing Club. His twin, Terry, was a heroin addict with a criminal record, and he died of an overdose.
Malone remains unmarried, but has an on-again, off-again plan to get engaged to Sonia Chang, daughter the owners of a Chinese restaurant in Dublin. Cocky and impatient, but an alert, fast learner, Malone takes his job too personally. He sees the gangsters who run Dublin now as personal enemies as well as enemies of ‘his crowd,’ his people that is, the working-class families trying to make a decent future for themselves. He is wry and mocking in his dialogue in the Squadroom, and his questions are always rhetorical. Malone readily shows his Dublin street-smarts, his drop-dead humour and even a vulnerable side to Minogue. In 'The Coast Road,' Malone has a deadly run-in with a local gangster and his Chinese 'guest' at a lock-up in the west end of Dublin.
• Detective Garda John Murtagh
A diligent, athletic slogger, Murtagh likes computers and also chasing buxom nurses in Dublin’s wild nightclub scene. He is often given the job of pulling information together and taking the helm (‘hold the fort, John’) in the Squad when Minogue and company hit the streets. Murtagh does not like his new nickname ‘Facebook’ Murtagh, believing that it makes him sound less a ‘player’ with ‘the girls’ than a nerd.
• Sergeant Fergal ‘Plate-Glass’ Sheehy
A wily, laconic Kerryman, it is often said of him that he might go enter a revolving door behind you but come out ahead of you. Sheehy is a fixer and a scrounger, and consequently Minogue’s first choice when the Murder Squad needs extra manpower. Sheehy garnered his nickname from a clumsy take-down of an armed criminal robbing a jewelry shop in Dublin some years ago.
• Garda Tom ‘Jesus’ Farrell.
Farrell is a graduate of many hair-raising episodes in his former posting to Border patrols and organized crime task forces. A bachelor, he’s horse-mad: he owns shares in a horse named ‘Stick-up’. Farrell’s nickname derives from an episode where he single-handedly took out an armed team of bank-robbers, one of whom turned out to be a boyhood friend. When the bank robber woke after surgery and clapped eyes on Farrell sitting by the bed, he was reported to have uttered the Holy Name, wondered if he were alive, or in hell, or both, and closed his eyes again.
• Detective Garda Shea Hoey
Now in Juvenile Services, Hoey needed a break from the Squad. Hoey made that journey across the Styx - Ireland’s river Shannon, dividing the ancient, forgotten West of Ireland from the modern East - with Minogue in ‘All Souls,’ with a failed suicide-attempt. He is now a recovering alcoholic, married.
• Éilís (secretary) pron. Eye-leash (Elizabeth)
Eccentric, Gitanes-smoking native Irish (Gaelic) speaker, Éilís has a tongue that would peel paint. Though a clerical worker, she is capable of running the Squad single-handedly. Éilís has serially dated a succession of men over the years, and to Minogue’s bewilderment the common denominator seems to be that they are all academics or teachers – with expertise in foreign languages.
• Commissioner John Tynan
Tynan, aka ‘The Monsignor’/’The Iceman’ studied to be a priest many years ago. He unnerves many senior Garda officers the likes of Jim Kilmartin. Has noted Minogue, and occasionally seeks him out often to hear candid feedback of rank-and-file Gardai. Tynan has recently suffered tragedy with the death of his wife.
Kilmartin looms large physically and as a stereotype of certain Irish males. He’s a bluff, shrewd, tough old-style cop. Community policing, social workers, probation officers - all these earn his sarcasm and scorn. Kilmartin will quickly resort to any means he deems fit to secure leads, suspects and convictions. He is not liked personally by the Commissioner, Tynan, and he’s uneasy about Minogue’s friendship with Tynan. Kilmartin despises Dublin people. He still resents the hiring of Tommy Malone into the Murder Squad. Kilmartin had a melt-down in ‘Islandbridge,’ where, as he wryly mutters in a pub to Minogue later, he turned career into a verb. He discovered that events in his wife’s past – she was the widow of a Guard murdered on duty twenty years ago – has led to her recent, covert meetings with Dublin gangsters. Cleared of misconduct and the possibility of criminal charges, a chastened Kilmartin bides his time on probationary posting to the Traffic section.
• Detective Garda Tommy ‘Molly’ Malone
Tommy Malone is thirty-three - ‘same age as You-Know-Who when he was crucified but don’t go getting ideas that I’d go as easy’. Malone is a dog-rough working-class Dubliner. He still boxes competitively in the Garda Boxing Club. His twin, Terry, was a heroin addict with a criminal record, and he died of an overdose.
Malone remains unmarried, but has an on-again, off-again plan to get engaged to Sonia Chang, daughter the owners of a Chinese restaurant in Dublin. Cocky and impatient, but an alert, fast learner, Malone takes his job too personally. He sees the gangsters who run Dublin now as personal enemies as well as enemies of ‘his crowd,’ his people that is, the working-class families trying to make a decent future for themselves. He is wry and mocking in his dialogue in the Squadroom, and his questions are always rhetorical. Malone readily shows his Dublin street-smarts, his drop-dead humour and even a vulnerable side to Minogue. In 'The Coast Road,' Malone has a deadly run-in with a local gangster and his Chinese 'guest' at a lock-up in the west end of Dublin.
• Detective Garda John Murtagh
A diligent, athletic slogger, Murtagh likes computers and also chasing buxom nurses in Dublin’s wild nightclub scene. He is often given the job of pulling information together and taking the helm (‘hold the fort, John’) in the Squad when Minogue and company hit the streets. Murtagh does not like his new nickname ‘Facebook’ Murtagh, believing that it makes him sound less a ‘player’ with ‘the girls’ than a nerd.
• Sergeant Fergal ‘Plate-Glass’ Sheehy
A wily, laconic Kerryman, it is often said of him that he might go enter a revolving door behind you but come out ahead of you. Sheehy is a fixer and a scrounger, and consequently Minogue’s first choice when the Murder Squad needs extra manpower. Sheehy garnered his nickname from a clumsy take-down of an armed criminal robbing a jewelry shop in Dublin some years ago.
• Garda Tom ‘Jesus’ Farrell.
Farrell is a graduate of many hair-raising episodes in his former posting to Border patrols and organized crime task forces. A bachelor, he’s horse-mad: he owns shares in a horse named ‘Stick-up’. Farrell’s nickname derives from an episode where he single-handedly took out an armed team of bank-robbers, one of whom turned out to be a boyhood friend. When the bank robber woke after surgery and clapped eyes on Farrell sitting by the bed, he was reported to have uttered the Holy Name, wondered if he were alive, or in hell, or both, and closed his eyes again.
• Detective Garda Shea Hoey
Now in Juvenile Services, Hoey needed a break from the Squad. Hoey made that journey across the Styx - Ireland’s river Shannon, dividing the ancient, forgotten West of Ireland from the modern East - with Minogue in ‘All Souls,’ with a failed suicide-attempt. He is now a recovering alcoholic, married.
• Éilís (secretary) pron. Eye-leash (Elizabeth)
Eccentric, Gitanes-smoking native Irish (Gaelic) speaker, Éilís has a tongue that would peel paint. Though a clerical worker, she is capable of running the Squad single-handedly. Éilís has serially dated a succession of men over the years, and to Minogue’s bewilderment the common denominator seems to be that they are all academics or teachers – with expertise in foreign languages.
• Commissioner John Tynan
Tynan, aka ‘The Monsignor’/’The Iceman’ studied to be a priest many years ago. He unnerves many senior Garda officers the likes of Jim Kilmartin. Has noted Minogue, and occasionally seeks him out often to hear candid feedback of rank-and-file Gardai. Tynan has recently suffered tragedy with the death of his wife.