Carol Kennedy is blazing a trail for women in Tipperary Fire Service

Tipperary Fire Service’s Assistant Chief Fire Officer Carol Kennedy is certainly blazing a trail for women in her very male dominated career.

The native of Spa Road, Clonmel believes International Women’s Day is an important platform to celebrate women’s achievements and push positive changes for women.

She also says the day is an opportunity to highlight equal opportunities for women in the workplace.

Carol isn't the only fire officer working in Tipperary Fire Service, which boasts an operational staff of more than 150. There is also one female fire fighter in the county’s Fire Service. However, Carol and her colleagues are striving to increase the number of women in the service. “The fire service has some way to go to get equal parity of men and women,” she said. “At the moment we are trying to push a recruitment drive and have done some Zoom calls with girls’ schools about career development in the fire services and promoting how it’s a good job for both men and women.”

Carol is well used to working in all male environments and says women bring a different dynamic and style of leadership to organisations, particularly when dealing with the public.

She was the only female student in her production engineering degree course at the University of Limerick and after graduation worked for a period with Lewmar anchor manufacturers in Scotland, which was also a predominantly male workforce, before moving to Pepsi Cola in Carrigaline, county Cork where there were a lot of women workers.

She joined Dublin Fire Brigade in 2012 as a Fire Prevention Officer where she earned promotion and returned to her home county in 2014 to take up the post of Assistant Chief Fire Officer at Tipperary Fire Service.

Her job is very varied and ranges from co-ordinating the plan for major emergency incidents in the county and community fire safety work to managing the Fire Service’s training centre in Clonmel. She is on operational call-out duty for one week in every four, which means she attends major fire and accident incidents where a rostered Senior Fire Officer is required. Carol is also Ireland’s only female swift water rescue instructor.