First female diver in Irish Naval Service history

Second Lieutenant Tahlia Britton has become the first woman to meet all the requirements and become a diver in the Irish Navy. After successfully completing 11 weeks of extremely demanding training, she and two colleagues from Haulbowline Naval Base, County Cork, received their logbook on 14 August and were ceremonially accepted as Irish Naval Service divers.

This is undoubtedly a great achievement for the 29-year-old Irish woman, as the Irish Nval Service diver training course has a 70% drop-out rate and is widely regarded as the most physically and mentally challenging of all the training courses available to Irish Defence Force soldiers, with the exception of selection for the Army Ranger Wing special unit.

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The Irish Navy’s elite diving team consists of around 30 carefully selected soldiers who are part of a marine diving unit that is responsible for search and retrieval, underwater engineering and disposal operations of dangerous finds such as munitions and explosives.

The training normally takes place in winter, but in the case of the 2020 class it was delayed by a coronavirus pandemic. Of the 10 trainees who had to complete a combined standard of 100 hours of diving in various conditions, Second Lieutenant Britton and her two colleagues were the only ones to make it to the end of the course.

Originally from Donegal, Tahlia Britton is 29 years old and has served in the Irish Naval Service for 6 years. She is a gunnery officer on the coastal patrol vessel LE James Joyce. After another 5 week training course in diving on special gas mixtures, she will return to her ship ready to take up duty in her new role. The next step on her diving path is expected to be mine clearance training, which will be conducted in Canada.

In the UK, the Royal Navy had women in its ranks as divers before it was decided that they were more likely than men to suffer from decompression sickness. The policy was repealed in 2010 when Lieutenant Catherine Ker became the first woman to graduate from a Royal Navy diving school.

^{Photo: Irish Naval Service}