Taking care and being responsible for a national historic park that is one of the largest enclosed parks within any European capital city is very impressive. 

Terry Moore (53), a Ballymun-born Santry resident,  became Pheonix Park’s  head  ranger about five years ago. 

He started his journey in St. Stephen’s Green as park constable, and after two years he got a job in Phoenix Park as a park ranger, which was deemed as a promotion. 

After around two years of being a park ranger, Pheonix Park’s deer keeper went for retirement and that’s when Moore got another position in the park.

Five years ago, another retirement helped Moore’s career, making him the head ranger of Pheonix Park.  

“It’s lot more responsibility now as the head ranger, and I’m still finding it hard to adapt to it,” he said. 

His duties now involve more administrative stuff, like  delegating  work  to the rest of the twelve park rangers and managing their rosters.  

“I’ll go out and look at the deer herd, make sure everything’s in order there. And then throughout the day, I patrol the park to make sure everyone that comes into it, has a pleasant time.” 

“My thing is just monitoring the park in its present state, reporting any structural damage, and reporting on incidents that happen out there in the park,” said Moore.

There are over 200 major sporting events in the park each year.  

“For the last six months, we’re having nearly a race every week.  There’d be lot of preparation to put everything  into  place, like  closing  and opening the roads.” 

“Then once the race is finished, we’ll put everything back to normal, get the park back open again.” 

There are always events, politicians, charity events happening in the park as well. 

“While a high-profile person is about to visit Aras, we’re locking the park down and we must do it in less than 20 minutes. We did it for the Queen, Joe Boyden, the Chinese prime minister.” 

There’s a set of bylaws that run the park that go back to as far as 1925, so “our job is to enforce them, to make sure they’ve been adhered to by all so that everyone that comes into the park respects it.” 

A big problem that Phoenix Park has been facing for a long time now is people feeding deer. 

There are approximately 600 deer in Phoenix Park at the moment. The bucks occupy the east side of the park and the does occupy the west side. 

“Deer need to eat grass, rest, and digest the food. But then you constantly get these people coming in, disturbing and moving them, giving them junk (carrots, crisps, all sorts of stuff) they don’t need.” 

“We don’t fine, we don’t go down that road, but it might be inevitable, because it’s getting so bad,” Moore warned. 

People don’t understand how dangerous feeding those animals might be both for humans and for deer. 

There were incidents of deer having Covid. It’s very rarely to hear about people being attacked by those lovely animals, however, it has happened a few times, but it was always involving people who tried to feed them.  

“It’s mostly when people try to feed them. They don’t do it on their own initiative. Red deer tend to be a little bit more aggressive, but fallow deer are quite timid.” 

Moore advises to observe them from approximately 50 metres, and he says that the best spot to find them is the grounds of St Mary’s hospital.  

“They’re in the park so long, they’re used to people jogging, to people walking dogs, the events that go on in the park, even people flying model airplanes, it doesn’t faze them at this stage because they’re so used to it.” 

Being a head ranger has its hard times, but most of the time it can be very rewarding. 

Moore jokes that “the most rewarding part is clocking out and then getting paid.” 

He added: “it’s great to observe how the park changes over seasons, especially while walking through plantations and meadows. The day goes really fast, it’s always filled with some kind of activity.”

“One time, there was this one lad, who was trying to commit suicide. Me and another colleague, just by chance, came upon him while we were on a walk. We tried to calm him down and persuade him not to do it. Eventually we were successful and about three months later he came back to thank us.”

According to Moore, it is essential to have an open mind and always be a courteous employee. 

“We are dealing with the public on a daily basis. You must be patient, a good listener, and don’t get offended too easy.”

“There are moments when you’d have to be a little bit diplomatic, you have to be a certain type of person to enjoy such work. If you don’t have much patience, it’s not going to work.”

Like with every job, though, it is good to have an outside hobby. For Moore it is gardening, which he took up few years ago.  

“It’s nice to see the labour of your work, especially when everything starts to bloom. It is very therapeutic.” 

Moore’s journey and career path to becoming head ranger for Phoenix Park is an inspiring one. If you are interested in working in facilities management to someday manage iconic sites like this one, visit the facilities management department.