THEY were standing to attention at Charlie Malone’s pub in Limerick City this past weekend when women from the first batch of female recruits in the Reserve Defence Forces (FCA) reported for duty for a special reunion.
50 women made history in 1991 in becoming the first female FCA recruits, stationed at Sarsfield Barracks in Limerick. This past Saturday, Helen Lavin and her sister-in-arms Debbie Benson, both from the historic bunch, rallied the troops once more for a reunion.
“I was one of the first women to make the rank of Corporal and then Sergeant. I’m very proud of that,” Helen told the Limerick Post.
“We did everything the Defence Forces did – weapons training, marching, but we mostly did it at weekends.”
Unlike today, there was a line drawn in the sand about what women could do once they completed training and passed out.
“We had a choice of joining Signals, Military Police, or Supply and Transport. These were the only areas open to us then. Now women can join the bomb squad – anything that they are interested in,” Helen explained.
It wasn’t all gun cleaning and square bashing. Helen recalled there was “a lot of socialising and a lot of laughs. There was more than one wedding came out of it.”
“There were funny moments as well. We were the first women that the NCOs trained, so there were some different rules.
“For instance, they weren’t allowed to come into the barracks where we slept in the morning. They could go in to the men’s barracks and get them up, but they had to stand outside our door shouting at us to hurry up,” Helen joked.
The reunion was well attended, with some trainers from the original groups coming from as far as Cork for the gathering, and a good night was had by all.
