POLICE SERGEANT THOMAS McGRATH, DUBLIN METROPOLITAN POLICE. Visit to Ireland Medal 1903 (officially engraved: P.S. T. McGRATH. D.M.P.). With its original shamrock top suspender brooch, few minor contact marks in obverse field, otherwise Extremely Fine and an attractive example.
Medal accompanied by copied extract from Jim Herlihy's Alphabetical List of DMP Officers and Men and extracts from 1901 and 1911 census returns. Thomas McGrath was born in 1862 in Kilneanor, Gorey, Co. Wexford. He enlisted into the Dublin Metropolitan Police in 1884. At the time of enlistment, he was 6 feet and a half inch tall and gave his trade as labourer and religion as catholic. He was recommended for the Dublin Metropolitan Police by his parish priest, the Reverend M. O'Neill. McGrath saw service with "B" Division DMP from 1/7/1844, "A" Division from 6/1/1893, "C" Division from 29/6/1900, "A" Division from 5/4/1901 and "B" Division from 30/12/1904. McGrath was promoted Police Sergeant on 29/6/1900 and pensioned on 14/3/1913 to a pension of £65 4 shillings and 2 pence per annum. He is recorded in the 1901 census as being a 39 year old member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police living at a house in Pleasant Street, Dublin, with his 7 year old neice, a female servant and five male boarders. In the 1911 census he is recorded as being a 47 year old member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, living in a house Heytesbury Street, Dublin, with his 49 year old wife, two nieces, a servant, and eight male boarders.
McGrath is mentioned in a number of contemporary news reports regarding arrests made and subsequent court appearances.
