“IT’S a great honour to be appointed as Officer Commanding of the Equitation School. Was it what I thought would happen when I joined the Defence Forces back in 2000? No, but that doesn’t mean it’s not something I strove for in the last number of years.” So says newly-promoted Lt Col Sharon Crean of her recent appointment at McKee Barracks, where, in the School’s centenary year, she has become the first female officer to occupy this role.

Crean grew up in Celbridge, Co Kildare, in a family with previous connections neither to equestrianism nor to the military. “I learned to ride in a riding school, and it wasn’t even my parents who booked me in to my first lesson. It was my mum’s friend, who booked her son and myself in when we were about five years old. I took weekly lessons for a couple of years, and then I started to spend the weekends there, working in return for free lessons. I got my first pony when I was nine, and she was a typical pony, great to learn on. She could be good, bad and everything in between!”