Kildare author children's book about Garda legend

A KILDARE-based sculptor, animator, and cartoonist has added another artistic feather to his comprehensive hat by releasing a self-illustrated children’s book about the most iconic Irish cop of all time – the famous Jim ‘Lugs’ Brannigan.

Aidan Harte from Naas might be better known as in artistic circles as the unintentionally controversial sculptor of the ‘Púca’. It was a Clare County Council-commissioned statue for the village of Ennistymon but was removed because the locals found it “sinister”.

“The local parish priest was a fan of its original location, but we eventually found a home for my lovely horse!” he said.

“I didn’t think that still happened in Ireland, but it was a bit of lockdown madness,” he said.

So what then brought him from bronze to bookstores and children’s literature?

“My background had been in animation, and as a cartoonist in Kilkenny [the thrice Oscar-nominated Cartoon Saloon], and what appealed to me about Lugs was as a certain ‘Desperate Dan’ cartoon character,” he explained.

“My first statue was cast in The Liberties, and that’s where I began to get the idea about Lugs,” he said.

Aidan Harte co-wrote the book with Sheila Armstrong a multi-nominated author, whilst he did the illustrations himself.

Jim Brannigan was born in the Liberties in 1910, and was quickly named ‘Lugs’ because of protruding ears – a moniker he never really liked. He joined the still new Garda Síochána in 1929, but at 6’4” it was unsurprising he became Leinster Heavyweight Boxing Champ by 1929.

This saw him fight all over the UK and Europe in representative bouts, but by the time he hung up his gloves before WW2, the dark arts for the mean streets were most excellently honed.

“This is the story of Lugs Brannigan and the period of Dublin he policed in the middle of the 20th century,” said Aidan. He began tidying up Dublin in the 1940s, taming a group of hooligans called the Animals, responsible for violent riots at both Baldoyle Races, and Tolka Park. “I mean, they turned up with swords and bayonets before Lugs settled them down. In the Fifties it was the Teddy Boys, mods and rockers in the Sixties, and skinheads in the Seventies,” he said.

“In the Sixties he started a patrol with a mobile riot squad in a Bedford van, called the Black Moria,” he said.

“I drew on a lot of sources, particularly the recent biographies of Bernard Neary and Kevin Keirans, the Dublin historian,” he said.

“It’s a mad story, and he was so much larger than life, so it lends itself to a comic book store,” he said.

“It’s really all about the Liberties, so I sent a copy to Imelda May, and she loved it!.

The book came out last week and is available in Hodges and Figgis, and Dubrays.