My Career: ‘When on patrol, it is a 24/7 job’

Name: Aisling O’Flynn

Age: 38

Lives: Carrigaline, Cork

Job title: Officer Commanding, LÉ Aoibhinn

Salary bracket: €60,000+

Education background:I attended St Vincent’s primary and secondary school in Cork city. On ing the Naval Service, I completed a BSc in Nautical Science in the National Maritime College of Ireland as part of my training. After my first sea posting, I completed a Diploma in Employee Assistance and Social through NUIG which then led to a Post Graduate in Social Policy and Practice in TCD.

Hobbies: Running, hiking, kayaking, and anything outdoors.

Describe your job in five words: Rewarding, challenging, adventurous, varied, and stable.

Describe yourself in five words: Enthusiastic, motivated, honest, adventurous, and considerate.

Personality needed for this kind of work? The Naval Service needs people with all different types of personalities, but people need to be motivated and adaptable.

How long are you doing this job? I will be 20 years in the Naval Service in September.

How did you get this job? The Naval Service has been part of my life since I was a child. My dad was a medic in the Naval Service so we were used to him being away. I ed the Naval Service Reserve while in secondary school which gave me the opportunity to try out being at sea before I ed. I applied for a cadetship when I was in sixth year. I had other options, but I chose my Naval Service Cadetship offer over my college place.

Do you need particular qualifications or experience? You need certain Leaving Cert results or a college degree to the Naval Service through the cadetship route, but there are no specific qualifications to as a recruit, although I would personally recommend that those ing as recruits do have a Leaving Certificate as there are fantastic opportunities such as trades that arise once in the Naval Service that will require one.

There are direct entry opportunities as well for individuals who already have certain trades, and details of those are available on the www.military.ie website.

Describe a day at work: This is a difficult question to answer as there really is never a general day for us when we are at sea. When the ship is on patrol, we get designated areas to operate and patrol.

It is then up to the ship to plan our patrol around this and any other taskings that we may have been given.

I will always have a general plan in of what we need and want to do on patrol outside of any specific taskings. This could be small boat training, fisheries boardings, gunnery shoots or fire fighting exercises (there is an endless list of training that we need to keep the ship’s company up to speed in).

Generally, I will get up in the morning, have a look at the weather, and make sure the intended plan will still work.

If the weather or personnel availability doesn’t allow for it, we will alter the plan to suit. LÉ Aoibhinn will generally be alongside somewhere or at anchor overnight, so once we have our checks done, we depart in the morning.

Maritime domain awareness (basically having a good idea of who and what is ing through Irish waters) is a major part of the job so we are constantly making sure that what we are seeing around us is what we expect to see and this is carried out using open source intelligence aswell as our own means of gathering the information. This can all be done in tandem with our training plan for the day.

At the end of day, we operate an overnight routine that is adjusted to whether we are alongside, at anchor, or steaming overnight.

How many hours do you work a week? It’s very varied. When on patrol it is a 24/7 job. This ship carries out two-week patrols and then has two weeks back in the Naval Base for maintenance. When we are back in the base, we do get time off which gives us a good work/life balance.

Is your industry male or female-dominated? It is still very predominantly male-dominated, with females making up around 7% of personnel. LÉ Aoibhinn’s core crew at the moment is 16% female.

Does this affect you in any particular way? Absolutely not. We all have our roles and it has never been an issue for me personally.

Is your job stressful? How? Rate it on a scale of 1-10: It can be stressful at times and on any given day, I could go from a 1 to a 10 within minutes, but will always come back down from that 10 fairly quickly.

I have a great crew on LÉ Aoibhinn, which really helps the stress levels.

The cause of the stress could be anything from the Irish weather when taking the ship alongside/departing to just being aware that the decisions I make for the ship will have an impact on the entire crew onboard.

Do you work with others or on your own? I could not do this job at all on my own. It is very much a team-orientated career where we rely on each person and their particular skillsets in order to keep the ship operational.

When do you plan to retire or give up working? I can retire at 50 with a pension so that’s a nice carrot to keep me going!

Best bits: The people and the views!

Worst bits: Being away from my children.

Advice to those who want your job? Take a chance and give it a go. There are so many opportunities available within the Naval Service and the Defence Forces that there is something for everyone.