‘National Services Day 2024’ served once again to celebrate Ireland’s statutory and voluntary emergency services, as over 1,000 personnel from the frontline services paraded along the streets of Dublin, Cork, Kildare, Kilkenny, Limerick, Drogheda and Wexford. Owen Medland, founding board member of National Services Day, reflects on the success of the event since it was first rolled out in 2013.
It was late 2012 when I received a phone call from a gentleman introducing himself as Seamus O’Neill. Since that call and over the next 12 years the concept of a day for the men and women of Ireland’s frontline, emergency and security services was born.
Seamus O’Neill, a retired school principal never forgot the support local frontline service workers gave to his school. “We’d had no money in the school and the army, and the guards used to play football matches to fundraise for us. So, in 2013 I was looking around and there was nothing in the State that recognised the work that the emergency and security services were doing.”
He decided to do something about it. He pulled together volunteers from all the frontline services to form a non-profit organisation FESSEF (Frontline Emergency and Security Services Eire Forum). Their mission would be to create events for the public to show their appreciation, while fostering greater collaboration between their services. In 2021 FESSEF was restructured and rebranded as National Services Day and by taking that phone-call in 2012 I was committed to this vision as one of the “volunteers” from the services.
From the first year of the parade in 2013 it was evident to the small committee under Seamus’s dogged determination that there was an appetite for the Ireland’s statutory and voluntary services to join forces and celebrate their collective service, to commemorate those who have served and inspired the next generation to volunteer and work in the sector.
By 2018 with some 24 state and voluntary bodies onboard and the annual parade now gaining attention on the streets of Dublin, the day was to become marked in the diary when the then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar approved the granting of the first Saturday of September as National Services Day. “You are an integral part of the fabric of every community and the life blood of civic engagement when danger presents,” he had noted at the time.
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SNAPSHOTS FROM NATIONAL SERVICES DAY 2024
Lord Mayor of Dublin James Geoghegan and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe TD (seated front) joined officials and officers at a ceremony in Dublin Castle to mark the start of this year’s National Services Day on 14 September.
A wreath-laying ceremony at Dublin Castle was held to remember those who lost their lives on the frontline.
National Services Day Chairperson Aiden Hanna addressed attendees at the wreath-laying ceremony in Dublin Castle.
The wreath-laying ceremony in Dublin Castle concluded with the raising of the Irish tricolour to full mast.
Leading this year’s parades, the RNLI was acknowledged for providing 200 years of service, and counting!
Ireland’s naval service personnel passing by the GPO on Dublin’s O’Connell Street during the 2024 parade.
Aerial view of ‘National Services Day 2024’ showcase on the grounds of Dublin Castle.
The National Ambulance Service Pipe Band passes by Dublin City Hall during the ceremonial element of National Services Day.
