Spotlight: More women applying to join defence forces and occupying specialist roles

For instance, the 11-week diving course completed by the 29-year-old gunnery officer has a 70% failure rate and Ms Britton was one of just three people to pass the course. Ten people had applied to join the 30-strong elite diving unit, which is responsible for search and recovery, underwater engineering, and explosive ordnance disposal.

In the current Potential Non-Commissioned Officers’ Course, for example, all three women who started alongside the 50 male candidates are still in the course. Already, at least 15 of the men have pulled out of the course.

And the Irish Examiner has learned that more and more women are now applying to join the elite special forces unit, the Army Ranger Wing.

Currently, it is the only unit in the defence forces where women do not serve.

However, while the army will not say how many have applied, it is understood from military sources the number of candidates wanting to join is going up.

Unlike the British and US military, for example, all roles within the Irish Defence Forces are open to women.

The most senior serving female member of the Defence Forces is Brigadier General Maureen O’Brien, Deputy Force Commander, UN Disengagement Observer Force (Undof).

One of the 40 women serving overseas as of July 31, she has 14 overseas missions to her name.

As well as being the first female promoted to the rank of general in the history of the Irish Defence Forces, she was — in 2011 — the first woman to be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. She was also the first woman to reach the rank of Colonel, in 2016.

The first female to be commissioned in the Irish Defence Forces was Dr Brigid Lyons Thornton.

Although she never wore a uniform, she held the rank of Commandant in the Army Medical Corps between 1922 and 1924.

While the numbers of women in the Defence Forces are low, they have been slowly increasing as more and more women dismiss the notion that the army is traditionally a career for men.

Commandant Gillian Collins, the Defence Forces Gender Equality and Diversity Advisor, is in no doubt the kind of woman the army appeals to.

“If people want to impact change, they will have so much of an opportunity to do so in the context of a career in the Defence Forces,” she said.

“As a woman, your very presence and visibility in this State is challenging gender inequality on so many levels.

“It is about empowering women and supporting women and challenging what society expects of women.

“This is how change can be brought about.

I hope we can reach that point where we are not talking about female leaders, we are just talking about leaders, and leaders who happen to be women.

The first female cadets were sworn in 1980, and commissioned in April the following year.

As of July 31, there were 483 women in the army, 65 women in the naval service, and 37 women in the air corps.

This compares with 6,304 men in the army, 838 in the naval service, and 685 in the air corps.

The number of women joining is down considerably this year due to Covid-19, with just eight joining as of July 31, compared with a total of 42 in 2019.

The numbers for men joining are down massively due to Covid-19, too, with just 69 joining this year as of July 31 compared with 563 inductions in 2019.

Also as of July 31, there were 122 female officers in the Army, 24 in the Naval Services, and 13 in the Air Corps.

In total, while 13.6% of all males are officers, 27.2% of all females are officers and 2nd Lieutenant Louise Horgan is one of them.

The 22-year-old from Douglas and who is based in Collins Barracks in 1 Brigade Artillery Regiment in Cork, joined on September 25, 2017.

She has wanted to be a soldier since she was a child.

“A big thing for me would be the overseas work they do," she said.

That she would be in such a minority —  with, for example, women making up 7.1% of the army — did occur to her.

However, it did not matter to her when she decided to join, shortly after her 19th birthday.

“I knew that that is the reality of the military but it would never have been something that would turn me away or phase me at all," 2nd Lieutenant Horgan, who is due to start a law and business degree later this month, said.

“I’ve never been treated differently because I am a woman and I never expected to be treated any differently from anybody else.”

The importance of women to the Defence Forces was underlined by chief of staff, Vice Admiral Mark Mellett at an International Women’s Day conference in 2018 on Women in Peacekeeping in The Hague.

At the time, the percentage of women in the Defence Forces was around 1% less than it is today.

He said: "We need more women in our Defence Forces not just for peacekeeping but for everything else — and not just because it is politically correct or makes us a better reflection of the society we defend, not just because 50% of our citizens are female.

“It is a capability issue and it is an essential enabler to maximise our capabilities.

“Better gender balance in key leader decision-making gives better outcomes.

"Indeed better gender balance at all levels gives better outcomes.”

'I wanted to be like my family'

Ciara Nevin very nearly did not join the army.

On October 24, 2016, the day she was due to join, she had a change of heart.

However, the 23-year-old talked herself back round to joining.

Now based with the 3rd Infantry Battalion in Kilkenny, she is one of the candidates on the 20th Potential Non-Commissioned Officers course.

If she passes, it will be one of a number of steps she plans to take to work her way up the ranks.

One of her uncles used to be a captain in the Air Corps, and she has a cousin currently serving in the Air Corps. Her great-grandfather was a commandant based in the Curragh.

“It was always spoken about in my family,” she said.

“He used to talk about his overseas trips when I was young, and I wanted to be in the army like him.”

Private Nevin’s plans for the future include an overseas posting.

And she wants to make a career training recruits, to pass on to others skills she has learned since joining.

Asked why more women don’t join, she said: “People see it as not being a very feminine job.

“But although it is very mentally and physically challenging, women are definitely well able to cope with it.”

“I have never had an issue with the fact that there are so few women in the forces.

It’s not for everyone but I would urge anybody who wants to give it a go.

“I had a change of heart at first but I stuck it out and I am really glad I did.

“I’ve never looked back.”

'I was stubborn enough to keep going with it'

The fact that everything is different is the one thing that attracts Jennifer Scott to the army.

The 24-year-old likes the fact that “you are not stuck doing the one thing”, and you can “change up and go do something else” if you feel like it.

Like her fellow Private (three-star), Ciara Nevin, she is based with the 3rd Infantry Battalion in Kilkenny.

Private Scott, who joined in March 2017, is also one of the candidates on the 20th Potential Non-Commissioned Officers (PNCO) course.

She remembers being in primary school when members used to come and do talks about life in the army.

“I always took an interest then,” she said.

I just had it in my head, and I was stubborn enough to just keep going with it.

She says that another thing she loves about the army is the fact that she had met “tonnes” of new friends, some of whom she is closer to than friends she knew before she joined.

She also has advice to any woman thinking about joining. 

"People thinking about joining might think it is all a bit daunting and intimidating," she said. 

"But I’ve seen other females come into this job and be perfectly able to hold their own and just be part of the job."

As well as progressing up the promotional ladder, she also wants to work as an instructor so she can  — like Private Nevin — pass on the skills she has learned over the years.

A trip overseas also sits firmly on what she calls her army “bucket list”.

'I always had my eye on joining the army since I was younger'

If you ever get accepted to the army and end up on one of its physical fitness courses, you will probably meet Catherine Jennings.

The 20-year-old Galway-born 3-Star Private wants a career as an army physical exercise trainer, or — more precisely — a combat fitness instructor.

This will include helping run the army's gruelling unarmed combat course.

“I always had my eye on joining the army since I was younger,” Private Jennings, who is based at Dún Uí Mhaoilíosa (Renmore Barracks) in Galway, said.

I was really into fitness and sport and I had a general interest in international relations.

“I saw there were a number of different components in the army that attracted me to it.

“I had it in my head throughout my teenage years."

While combat fitness is where she sees her long term future, like her two other colleagues on the PNCO course, she too wants to serve overseas.

Asked why she thinks there are so few women in the Defence Forces, she said: “Traditionally, it was a male job.

“And like any career, some have a lot more female, and some have a lot more males, and the military just tends to be one that has a lot more males.

“I have no issue working in a mostly male environment."

The hardest part of being in the army for her is getting used to “making decisions under severe pressure in a critical environment”.

To any other women thinking of joining, she said: “There is no reason why you shouldn’t — if it’s something you really want to do.”

Solider-turned-author: Five years in army 'one of best experiences ever'

Michelle Dunne regards the five years she spent in the Defence Forces as one of the best experiences of her life.

The Cobh-born physical therapist, who recently signed publishing deals in Ireland, the UK, and America for her first novel, While Nobody Is Watching, joined in 1998, aged 18.

She was based with the 12th Infantry Battalion in Limerick’s Sarsfield Barracks.

Herself and another female colleague were the first women to ever serve there.

“I remember for the first couple weeks, they didn't quite know what to do with the two of us,” she said.

“But to be fair, everybody was very overly polite, if anything.

“We just threw ourselves into the middle of everything, and became very much one of the gang.

After a while, once they got to know that side of us, the pleasantries stopped and we were just treated the same as everybody else.

After a while, due to her female colleague moving to another regiment, she was the only female soldier in the barracks.

“I don't look back with rose-tinted glasses, because my memories of my whole army career have been very positive,” she said.

“But there was a little bit of animosity.

“I was promoted quite young to Corporal.

“For the most part, I got on really well with everybody and I didn't feel like a minority.

Some of my best friends were in that camp, and if I had any problems, they were the ones I went to.

“There was probably some men who thought I didn't deserve to be there because I was only in the army about three years at that point.

“But I volunteered for absolutely everything, so I don't feel I deserved it any less than anybody else.

“Nobody criticised me to my face, but you just got a vibe that some of the older guys weren’t happy about me being promoted.”

Some of that “vibe” ended up as graffiti on a wall in the barracks.

It, in a lewd way, suggested how she achieved her promotion and it was nothing to do with the fact that for her entire five-year career in the army she threw herself at every professional opportunity.

The graffiti didn't bother her, however.

“There weren't enough negative people that came my way for them to have made any lasting impression," she said.