The Lifeboat Women of Ireland

In the past, as with so many professions, when the question was asked, “Are there any women on lifeboat crews?”, the stock response from many lifeboatmen was: “No, they wouldn’t really be suitable for the job — the first woman on board this lifeboat, and I’ll be the first off it!”

This attitude has never been fair to women, particularly when one looks back through the annals of history and reads of rescues such as that carried out by the two Pidgeon sisters, Rachel and Mary. These two Dublin girls were, in the 1760s, running their father’s boating service when they witnessed a violent storm in Dublin Bay that wrecked two ships. They spotted a lone survivor and did not hesitate to launch their boat to his aid.

One will also recall the famous rescue by Grace Darling and her father in 1838, when they saved nine men from the wreck of the Forfarshire. This rescue, which received enormous publicity and notoriety at the time, had a profound effect on the Society for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck — as the RNLI was then known — for it created an atmosphere in which the Society could appeal for further funds and public support.

In the past, the main reason given for not having female lifeboat crew members was their supposed lack of physical strength. While perhaps this was true in the era of pulling and sailing lifeboats, it was certainly not justifiable with the arrival of motorised lifeboats. However, it was not until the spring of 1981 that a woman joined the crew of an offshore lifeboat.

This honour went to an Irish woman — Frances Glody of Dunmore East — who was given the nod by the then Coxswain of the Dunmore East lifeboat, Stephen Whittle. There was much surprise at this in Dunmore East and a great deal of discussion at the RNLI head office in Poole. No one doubted Stephen’s decision, for he had been Coxswain for 22 years and was the most decorated Coxswain in Ireland at the time. But a woman? On the lifeboat?

The whole of Dunmore East, however, knew — and as the RNLI would soon find out — that Frances was a bit different, and a bit special.

She was a member of the famous fishing and lifeboating family, the Glodys, and she had spent a great deal of her life aboard fishing boats with her brothers, as well as in the pilot cutter with her father. Her father, in fact, had deliberately brought her out in the pilot cutter when the weather was especially rough, hoping to make her seasick and diminish her passion for the sea. However, the effect was quite the opposite. Frances grew to love the rough sea so much that she would no longer bother going out if it was a calm day.

Although none of her fellow crew members openly objected to her presence, there were some private misgivings about having a woman aboard the lifeboat. But as one crew member recalled in an English Sunday newspaper article about Frances, all such misgivings vanished during one particular call-out.

“It was a summer day, very calm. We got a call that two children had been drowned just off here. The divers found one body, and we picked up the other — a little boy. Now, you see some terrible things at sea — smashed limbs, people already dying when you haul them aboard — but a dead child is by far the hardest to take.

So after we had got the little lad aboard and covered him up, we fellows stood there with our faces turned away, feeling sort of sorry for ourselves — but not Frances. She made the sign of the cross over him and said a prayer. That changed my attitude completely. I’d never seen anything so cool and yet so soft-hearted.”

In that same article, Frances was asked about marriage. Her response was:

“Strange, isn’t it, how a woman is expected to let her husband put to sea in a lifeboat? But is there a man who would let his wife do the same?”

When Frances did marry, she chose well. She found a man who was happy to let his wife go to sea in a lifeboat — a fellow lifeboat volunteer, Mr. Brian Crummy, who had served on the Dun Laoghaire lifeboat.

Ruth Lennon, Donaghadee:

The second, and so far only other female member of an offshore lifeboat, is Ruth Lennon of Donaghadee. Ruth is the daughter of Donaghadee Coxswain Willie Lennon and this relationship alone would have been enough to put most girls off joining the lifeboat crew. For, as in Frances’s case, Ruth’s father was not an ardent supporter of her wish to be a Donaghadee lifeboat crew member.

Ruth undertook the task of persuading her father and his fellow crew members with the same enthusiasm and resilience which she displayed in her crew training. Thus, in 19??, she was accepted as a full crew member.

Ruth is trained as a nurse and works at the moment in Belvoir Park Hospital, Belfast. As a nurse Ruth is regularly on night duty and thus on more than one occasion she has heard the deafening explosion of the maroons as she is about to climb into bed in the early morning. Without hesitation, this Florence Nightingale of land and sea always answers the call to “man the lifeboat”.

Kalanne O’Leary, Skerries

When Skerries Lifeboat Station was re-established in 1981, having been closed for 51 years, the new D class lifeboat required a new crew. This crew had to be drawn from people who were both young and fit. Among those who volunteered their services was a young woman, Kalanne O’Leary. Kalanne is at present the only female member of the Skerries crew and, like Frances Glody, she too is married to a fellow lifeboatman, Martin O’Toole.

Kalanne, although born in Churchtown, Dublin, and brought up there, spent many long summers on Skerries beach and sailed Heron and Optimist dinghies under the Skerries Sailing Club burgee from an early age.

It was her experience of handling fast, competitive sailing boats like the Fireball dinghy, which she and her husband Martin built in 1976, that was to stand her in good stead as a lifeboat crew member. The many capsizes and general soakings she had got over the years helped “build my healthy respect for the sea,” says Kalanne. Of her involvement with the RNLI she says, “I was delighted with the opportunity to participate in a small way with this vital service.”

Monica Lee and Sharon Scully, Dun Laoghaire:

When Dun Laoghaire Lifeboat Station in August 1985 announced they were seeking volunteers to man the new D class lifeboat, there was no shortage of interested people. Of the 35 or so who started the crew training, there were only two girls, Monica Lee and Sharon Scully. Both girls had a great deal of seafaring experience, Sharon having worked with her father on his fishing and pleasure boats, while Monica was an accomplished yachtswoman of both dinghies and cruisers.

During the winter, spring and early summer, both girls trained with their fellow crew members studying first aid, radio telephony and navigation. As Monica said: “We have to do everything like the men and we work as part of the team so that none of us fall down on the job.”

Monica is no longer a crew member as she departed on a seven-year voyage around the world in August 1986 with fellow lifeboat crew member Brian McAlastair — who says lifeboat work ruins your social life!

Sharon, although now the only female crew member in Dun Laoghaire, is looking forward to the new season which runs from March to October. Her feelings about the lifeboat service and her role in it were summed up by her as follows:

“During the summer I was involved in the rescuing of eight young children and their father from their boat which had run aground at Dalkey Island. Being able to help people in trouble gives you a really good feeling inside, so when we were washing down the lifeboat after the service it was really maddening to hear a bystander remark our boat wasn’t a real lifeboat because it was made out of rubber. The crew of this lifeboat are just as willing to go to sea to help anyone in distress just like all the other crews in the RNLI, otherwise what’s the point of being on the crew in the first place?”

Frances Glody’s appointment in 1981 marked a quiet but important turning point for the RNLI in Ireland. Though she never sought publicity or praise, her calm courage, her deep connection to the sea, and her quiet competence spoke louder than any argument. She had proven, through action rather than words, that courage and compassion know no gender.

Today, when women stand shoulder to shoulder with men on lifeboat decks around the coast of Ireland, they do so in the wake of Frances Glody of Dunmore East — the first woman ever to be given the nod.