MOTHER, grandmother, probation officer – you won’t see this description on Mairead Carmody’s official business card.

Nonetheless, it describes parts of her life and personality that are important to her.

It’s a sunny Monday afternoon when I visit Mairead in a spacious living room in her home in Skibbereen.

The coals are gleaming in the stove and her laptop is propped up on the table. A couple of green office folders lie within reach. 

This is her workplace a few days a week, unless she attends court hearings or goes on client visits all over West Cork, even to the most remote places.

Among the many people she supervises on behalf of the Probation Service are drug dealers, violent offenders, sex offenders and first-time offenders.   

On the wall right behind her work laptop are countless family photos. Mairead is a mother of seven children and a grandmother to 12.

And by her own admission, the red thread running through her life is a care for people. 

Community

‘I grew up on a farm and there was a great sense of community. Farmers were helping each other out and there was a lot of communication between people. It went through the generations,’ said Mairead.  

Photos on her living room wall show Mairead’s husband John who passed away five years ago. John managed a food processing plant in Skibbereen from 1965 until it closed its doors in 1981. 

Outside of work, the couple were involved in the community, with the Geriatric Society and the GAA.

During some of their best years together, the pair bought and refurbished a three-storey building on Bridge Street, where they opened the Centra store and An Cruiscín Bar, running it from 1982 until 1989.

After selling their enterprise, Mairead decided on a career change that would set her on a completely different path. 

Void

‘When we gave up our business 23 years ago, I knew there would be a large void in my life,’ she explained.

‘My experience in life and raising a big family is as useful to me as my work qualifications.’

After completing a Master’s degree in Social Work at UCC, she began work as a probation officer in Cork. The job took Mairead into Cork Prison, working directly with inmates and their
families. 

One of her achievements was starting a family support group in the prison.

The idea behind it was to help families support each other in dealing with the emotions that come from having a loved one behind bars.

‘The prisons are overcrowded and there’s now more of an emphasis on community service,’ noted Mairead.

‘That’s a positive development. There’s also a growth in people doing restorative justice. 

‘Judges tend to use prison sentences as a last resort. Somebody might be deterred from re-offending once they’ve been to prison once. But for others, it’s a different story.’

An inside look at Cork prison.

Purpose

Mairead, who enjoys swimming and playing bridge, says that the role of the Probation Service, as she sees it, is to help a person find a new purpose or goal and to work with them to achieve that goal, to leave behind a life of crime. 

She says there are now many activities, courses, workshops and degree programmes that prisoners can take up while serving their time.
But she admits that, sometimes, the corporate structures and rules that bind the Probation Service can pose a challenge when dealing with offenders on a case-by-case basis, rather than dealing with their humanity. 

Next year, Mairead will celebrate 20 years in the job. She says that no two days are the same and sometimes the smallest of things can make a difference to someone’s life. 

She once gifted a diary to a young person to organise important  appointments. Along with this gift, she helped them gain more confidence, independence and decision-making skills.  

‘Some young people come from extremely difficult and chaotic backgrounds,’ she said. ‘They might get involved in drugs at a young age and, before long, they owe somebody money. They get caught up in a situation where they have to start dealing themselves. 

‘I have clients who say that getting caught was the best thing that happened to them. They managed to be free of the person bullying them and forcing them into that life.’

Caseload

This is just a snapshot of the biographies and crime stories behind some of the statistics.

In 2024 alone, the Probation Service in the Southwest (Clare, Cork, Kerry and Limerick) dealt with 2,361 cases of people in or out of custody.

The vast majority of offenders are men over the age of 18. 

Near the end of our conversation, the sun now disappearing, Mairead says she can completely understand victims of crime who want to lock up perpetrators and throw away the key.

At the same time, she says justice is a double-edged sword and that, from experience, she believes it’s worth giving people a second chance.

Just before I get ready to leave, talk turns to the importance of family, and why Mairead believes our upbringing has an effect on the choices we make.   

‘If you learn how to make choices and know what the outcomes of those choices can be, you have learnt a good skill, rather than just making a choice that could be a bad choice that you’ll later regret.

At work I’ve often sat across from people and asked myself ‘If I was in that position, where would I be?’ I could easily be sitting over there on the other side’.

For information on the work of the Probation Service visit www.probation.ie.

Funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme.