An Cosantóir

26 When your family tells you that you may have a long-tailed link to the legendary Pirate Queen Grainualie (Gráinne Mhaol) then a life at sea seems set as your destiny. And so it was PO/ Navy Cook, Aileen Hanna. "My grandfather, Louis McKeown, always told us we were descendants of Grainualie", explains Aileen, "And then a couple of years ago we did a DNA test and it told us that our ancestors came from the same place as Grainualie in Mayo. So maybe he was telling us the truth." The connection with the sea was, in fact, a little more obvious than that for Aileen. Grandfather Louis, father Joe and two Uncles were all in the Irish Naval Service. Her bigger concern from a younger age was how to combine her love of cooking and the outdoors in a career for the future. "I wanted to go to college and at the same time work at something involving the outdoors. I realised I could do both in the Naval Service. I could get a qualification and then do all the things I wanted to do in the Navy", she said. Interestingly, her Dad Joe was a Dub who travelled down to Haulbowline when he joined the Naval Service. There he met her mother, Rita, and that was how Aileen came to grow up in the very heart of Irish naval operations in Cork. Aileen had always wanted to be a Chef and knew there would be a lot of college work involved. But what made her hesitate was that she would end up in a restaurant or hotel kitchen doing the same thing every day for a long time into the future. "That made me question my future career choice", she said, but with the Navy, she found a happy solution. "I could be a chef but at the same time enjoy a very varied life with plenty of outdoor activity. With the Navy you don't know what you are going to be doing, it is very different." Aileen quickly knew Navy was life for her and so at 17 in her Leaving Certificate year, she enlisted in September 2002. It was then into basic naval training, in the early days, before the practical instruction in how to be a qualified cook. At the interview stage Aileen says there was a lot of competition, with only four places on offer from 30 applicants. "It was a PO AILEEN HANNA PO AILEEN HANNA Photos by A/B David Jones By Tony O'Brien v All female gaurd of honor celebrating 100 years since the Easter rising in Dublin Castle time when there was a lot of talk about celebrity chefs and it seemed everyone wanted to be one." Plus there was the issue of being the first female to do the course. "If you are a woman joining the Navy, or indeed the Defence Forces as a whole, then you must know that it is what you want to do. I was surrounded by men. When I went cheffing I probably felt there was a bit of a weight of responsibility on me to do the best I could, not to let women down," Aileen remarks. That initial training was in the Army School of Catering in McKee Barracks in Dublin, where she spent a full year. "I loved it. There were small classes which mean you got the personal attention you wouldn't get in big classes," she said. After that it was back to Navy and Haulbowline. "That was when you took up your trade; you learned on the job, including at sea, before it was back to college again". At sea, Aileen explained you are only called a trainee cook six months after qualification. All the time you are learning with the senior staff. "There were three cooks on a ship and as a junior you were doing exactly what they were doing, but under supervision. It was a bit of a v PO Hanna's current posting onboard P64 LE GB Shaw Galley as PO/Cook v Christmas Day Duty onboard P64 GB Shaw 2020

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