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Women On The Frontline Across Irish Defence Forces, Tom Clonan

Articles

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the enlistment of women to the Irish Defence Forces. Whilst Irish women fought in the 1916 Rising and were combatants in the War of Independence and Civil War, they were largely excluded from the newly formed Free State Army of the 1920s. Dr. Bridget Lyons Thornton was an exception to this rule and was commissioned as an officer at the rank of Lieutenant in 1923. She was demobilised in 1924, and aside from the Army’s Nursing Service, the Defence Forces were to remain an all-male preserve for almost sixty years. The ‘men-only’ status …