On duty: reflections on a life in the guards

Between 2016 and his retirement in 2022, Assistant Garda Commissioner John O'Driscoll was the public face of Garda operations targeting organised crime. This put him at the centre of a long-running quest to bring down the Kinahan drug cartel, culminating in US sanctions being imposed - an unprecedented development spearheaded by O'Driscoll.

But the Kinahans were just some of the many notorious drug dealers and criminals O'Driscoll successfully brought to book. During his tenure at Dublin's Store Street he was tasked with reckoning with the heroin epidemic: his unique approach to community policing got to the root of the power of infamous criminals like Tony Felloni, Michel Cronin and Derek Dunne, stripping them of their assets.

No Assistant Garda Commissioner has ever written a memoir before; On Duty promises to be a unique insight into policing operations in Ireland at the highest level.

'John O'Driscoll makes an authoritative and valuable contribution, quite without precedent, to the debate around policing and security policy in 21st century Ireland' Conor Brady, former editor of The Irish Times and author of The Guarding of Ireland.