Peter Boyce: A Tribute by Friend and Colleague, Pat Keown   You are in · RoscreaOnline · Community · People Profiles

What can a former colleague say about the “Great Guard Boyce” as he was so affectionately known?

He himself liked to be known as “The Senior Man In Moneygall” or when the occasion permitted, he often referred to himself as “The Moneygall Station Party”. Without a doubt, he was all of the above but he was also part of the Roscrea Garda Station Party.

Peter, one could say, spent most of his life as a Garda working in Roscrea. Even though he was stationed in Moneygall for the past number of years, more often than not, he worked from Roscrea. He was a great colleague and a mighty man to help out, no matter what the reason. If anyone wished to have a few hours off, Peter would most certainly oblige and all it would take would be a phone call to him in time to extricate himself from under whatever tree he would be examining and to change into uniform. Time would also have to be allowed so that he would be able to manoeuvre his way from a particular field and make his way to Roscrea in his trusted Massy Ferguson. He might not always have a pen on arrival but he always had one when he left. No one knows where they went and no investigation by another great colleague of his and another Limerick man could ever track down at those pens. Just as well they were only “Oifig An tSoláthair” ones and not anything much more expensive.

In any case, various things have been said about Peter and how good a colleague he was, etc. Yes he was a great colleague, one who had a vast local knowledge and great sense of humour but most importantly, he is still a good colleague and a great friend. Both of us have seen some tough times in An Garda Siochana and today’s job hasn’t been made any easier even by the onslaught of time. No matter, time marches on for all of us and the time came for the Great Guard Boyce to hang up his baton and torch and to take down the now almost rusty chainsaw that has to be started by means of a belt attached to a pulley on the tractor and to get to work on some of those mighty “Redwoods” around his “parish” of Moneygall and surrounding hinterland. Farmers beware, there’s a man with a saw looking at your apple trees! And it’s not the apples he is looking at.