The Garda Podcast

The SDU (Special Detective Unit) is our Counter TerrorismUnit with responsibility for State security. This highly trained unit mitigate and investigate any threats to the State. The SDU also has responsibility for the protection of diplomatic missions to Ireland. In this episode of the Garda Podcast, Detective Chief Superintendent Brian Woods gives a behind the scenes insight in to this fascinating unit. Detective Chief Superintendent Woods started his career with An Garda Síochána in Ballyfermot, Dublin where he rose to the rank of Detective and worked on the Veronica Guerin case. He then spent time with the United Nations in Cyprus, the Garda Economic Crime Bureau, the Criminal Assets Bureau, Security Intelligence, projects around proactive policing, the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and now SDU.

Topics discussed: History of the SDU, radicalisation, Hostile State Actors, State Security, Counter Terrorism and more.

One of the most popular Garda Podcasts of 2025 tells the story about the interdiction of the MV Matthew. This special video episode is produced by An Garda Síochána's Office of Corporate Communications.
On September 23 2023, a Panama flagged cargo ship called the MV Mathew entered Irish territorial waters, having set off from Curacao, an island off the coast of Venezuela.
Unbeknownst to its crew, suspicions about the ship’s activities had been communicated by international intelligence agencies to An Garda Síochána’s Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.
The ship was being monitored, with the belief that its cargo may contain illegal drugs.
On September 22nd, the day before the MV Matthew entered Irish waters, two men, bought a fishing trawler called the FV Castlemore in West Cork.
The activities of the crews on board both vessels would result in a dramatic joint task force operation carried out at sea in gale force winds and would lead to the largest drug seizure in the history of the State.
The seizure of devices and the interception of messages between both sea fairing crews and their criminal gang members on land, led to the conviction and sentencing of eight men – six from the MV Matthew and two from the Castlemore trawler.
The radio and phone conversations you hear in this podcast are real.

The Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) enforces immigration legislation in Ireland. In this episode,  Detective Chief Superintendent of GNIB Aidan Minnock brings us behind the scenes of this busy and specialist bureau. This interview took place in mid-November 2025. Some statistics mentioned in the episodes will have changed at the time of listening.

Garda Forensic Collision Investigators (FCIs) are deployed in the immediate aftermath of fatal or life altering road traffic collisions.  They are trained to forensically reconstruct a road traffic collision. In this episode, FCI Sergeant Paddy McElroy discusses this important role in detail.

Come with us on a high visibility beat patrol in Dublin city centre.