The south western corner of the park is known as the Furry Glen. It has a number of short walks around a small lake with birds, plants and wildlife.
The park has sports grounds for football, hurling, soccer, cricket and polo.
Phoenix Cricket Club is located in the park. It was founded in 1830 by John Parnell, the father of Charles Stewart Parnell. It is the oldest cricket club in Ireland. During the 1930s, 1940s and 1970s, it was the most important club in Leinster cricket.
Motor racing first took place in the Phoenix Park in 1903. The Irish Gordon Bennett Race Speed Trials were held on the main straight road for both cars and motorcycles. This was followed in 1929 by the Irish International Grand Prix; the first of three Irish motor racing grands prix.
Racing took place between 1932 until the beginning of World War II in 1939. It was started again after the War in 1949 with a sprint on the "Oldtown" circuit. Over the years seven different circuits have been used, two of which are named after the famous Ferrari World Champion racing driver Mike Hawthorn.
The Great Ireland Run is a 10 km running competition. It has been held every year in April since 2003. It includes races for professional runners and the public. In 2010 over 11,000 people joined in.
A large gardening, food and family event called "Bloom" is organised in the park every year since 2006. It had nearly 90,000 visitors in 2011.
Musical acts like U2, Coldplay, Duran Duran, Robbie Williams, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kanye West have played concerts in the park.
The park plays a big role in James Joyce's novel, "Finnegans Wake".
Thylacosmilus
Thylacosmilus is a extinct genus of carnivorous sparassodont. found as fossils in deposits dated from about 10 million to 3 million years ago (late Miocene to late Pliocene epoch) in Argentina, South America.
"Thylacosmilus" was sabre-toothed and was about as large as a modern jaguar. To a remarkable degree, "Thylacosmilus" paralleled the evolution of felid sabre-toothed cats like "Smilodon". Its canine teeth were long and powerfully developed; they were used for stabbing prey. Its killing method was to hold its prey, and make deep bites into the soft tissue driven by powerful neck muscles. The canine teeth were protected by a well-developed flange, or projecting edge, in the chin region of the lower jaw. The canines continued to grow during adult life, which they do not in marsupials or placental mammals.
"Thylacosmilus" died out during the late Pliocene, whereas saber-toothed cats did not get to South America until the middle Pleistocene epoch. As a result, the last appearance of "Thylacosmilus" is separated from the first appearance of "Smilodon" by over one and a half million years.
Garda Síochána
The old English language name of the force was the Civic Guard, but this title is no longer used. "Garda Síochána na hÉireann" is usually rendered as the "Guardian of the Peace of Ireland" or the "Guardians of the Peace (of Ireland)".
The full official title of the force is rarely used in speech. It is known, in decreasing order of formality, as ( pronounced ); "the" '; the ' (in the preceding names, ' "guard" is a collective noun, like "police"); the ( ; "guards", plural); or the Guards.
An individual officer is also called a ' (plural '), or, informally, a guard. A police station is called a " station". ' is also the lowest rank within the force, also used as a title (e.g. " John Murphy"), analogous to the British term "constable" or the American "officer" ("deputy/trooper/etc."). "Guard" is the most common form of address used by members of the public speaking to a garda on duty. A female officer was once officially referred to as a ' (; "female guard"; plural '). This term was abolished in 1990, but is still used colloquially in place of the now gender-neutral '.
The force is headed by the Commissioner. Immediately below him are two Deputy Commissioners, one in charge of "Operations" and the other "Strategy and Change Management". The Chief Administrative Officer has responsibility for resource management (personnel, finance, ICT and accommodation) has the same rank as a Deputy Commissioner. There are twelve Assistant Commissioners: one for each of the six geographical Regions, and the remainder dealing with various national support functions. At an equivalent or near-equivalent level to the Assistant Commissioners are the positions of Chief Medical Officer, Executive Director of ICT and Executive Director of Finance.
The six geographical "Assistant Commissioners" command the six "Garda Force Regions", which are currently:
Reporting to the Assistant Commissioners are about 50 Chief Superintendents, about half of whom supervise what are called Divisions. Each Division contains a number of Districts, each commanded by a Superintendent assisted by a team of Inspectors. Each District contains a number of Subdistricts, which are usually commanded by Sergeants.
Usually each Subdistrict contains only one Garda station. A different number of are based at each station depending on its importance. Most of these stations employ the basic rank of Garda, which was referred to as the rank of Guard until 1972. The most junior members of the force are students, whose duties can vary depending on their training progress. They are often have clerical duties, as part of their extra curricular studies.
The Garda organisation also has over 2,500 civilian support staff covering areas such as human resources, occupational health services, finance and procurement, internal audit, IT and telecommunications, accommodation and fleet management, scenes-of-crime support, research and analysis, training and general administration. The figure also includes industrial staff such as traffic wardens, drivers and cleaners. It is ongoing government policy to bring the level of non officer support in the organisation up to international standards - thus enhancing its capacity and expertise in a range of specialist and administrative functions, and releasing more of its police officers for core operational duties.
The Garda Síochána Act 2005 provided for the establishment of a Garda Reserve, consisting of 4,000, to assist the force in performing its functions, and supplement the work of members of the Garda Síochána.
The job of the Garda Reserve is "to be a source of local strength and knowledge". Reservists carry out duties decided by the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. With reduced training, these duties and powers must be operated under the supervision of regular members of the Force, and are also limited from those of regular members.
As of November 2010 there are 850 graduated Garda Reserve, and another 148 in further training, the first batch of 36 Garda Reserves graduated on 15 December 2006 at the Garda College, in Templemore.
Most uniformed members of An Garda Síochána do not usually carry firearms. It is a tradition of the service that standard policing is carried out in both rural and urban areas by uniformed officers equipped only with a wooden truncheon. From March 2007 all new Gardaí have been issued with ASP extendable batons, with existing members trained in time. In addition, the Garda Commissioner announced in October 2008 that all Gardaí are to be issued with Pepper Spray. As of December 2009, all Gardaí have been trained and issued with this Spray.
The force, when originally created, was armed, but the Provisional Government reversed the decision and reconstituted the force as an unarmed police force. This was in contrast to the attitude of the British Dublin Castle administration, which refused appeals from the Royal Irish Constabulary that that force be disarmed. In the words of first Commissioner, Michael Staines, TD:
According to Tom Garvin such a decision gave the new force a cultural ace: "the taboo on killing unarmed men and women who could not reasonably be seen as spies and informers."